Under the Sun
by adangeli
Summary: When lightning strikes the DHD and strands Sam and Jack alone on a planet, they must rely on one another to get through until help can arrive. Soon, though, they discover they're not alone on the planet and things change. Suddenly they're thrust into local politics and Sam is drafted to help save the locals' lives. Perhaps, all of it can help them get home.
1. Chapter 1

**Day 1**

"Captain Carter, your sample containers."

Sam looked up from the tiny hole in the ground to the big alien and squinted though he was blocking most of the sun from her view. "Thanks, Teal'c. I thought I had plenty."

"It was no trouble," he assured her and then turned away to rejoin Colonel O'Neill doing whatever it was the two of them did while she and Daniel explored the planets they visited. She supposed they kept watch. From what, though, on this particular planet, she was unsure. The UAV had picked up little more than ruins, mountains, and trees.

Behind her she heard a watch alarm go off. "Time to reapply, kids," the colonel's voice rang out.

Sam shifted back onto her heels, lifted her hat out of the way and dragged a hand across her forehead. It was damned hot on the planet despite the storm clouds that were intermittently blocking out the sun. She left the sample containers on the ground where she was working and got up to join the colonel and Teal'c over by the FRED. Daniel, on the other hand, went on about his business as if Colonel O'Neill hadn't ever spoken.

"Daniel! Sunscreen. Now. Before you die a slow death from UV radiation poisoning."

"That's not exactly what would happen, Jack," Daniel called back, as he snapped another photograph of a piece of ruin. "Besides, Sam said we'd have to be exposed for, like, two months without the benefit of sunblock or shelter before we'd even begin to develop lesions."

"But it's a crappy way to go. So come put on your sunblock."

"In a minute," the archaeologist decided.

The colonel huffed as he handed Sam a container of SPF 50. "At least one of you still listens to me."

"I sort of have to," she pointed out with a smile.

"And not that it doesn't give me a little thrill," he said with a rakish grin that made her cheeks flush, "but I think I'd enjoy it more if he had to. Just to get a dig in."

"Yes, sir," she said, hiding her wide smile by ducking her head.

"How much longer do you need?" He asked her, producing a second tube of sunscreen and flipping open the cap. He began to apply the product to his own arms.

"For the samples? Not long, really. I'm more interested in getting my hands inside the DHD. The crystal technology never gets old, no matter how often I see it."

"Aren't they all put together the same?"

"Yes, sir," she verified.

"And you want to open this one up, too?"

"Yes, sir."

He just shook his head at her. "Okay. Just don't... dismantle it."

Her shoulders fell. She couldn't help it. She liked taking things apart. And she knew she could put it back together. "Yes, sir."

He sighed. "Okay, okay. Just don't dismantle it hard."

She beamed at him. "Yes, sir." As she smoothed the sunblock onto her arms she considered their exploratory mission on this planet. It had been an action packed few months, really, and this seemed like an SGC sanctioned vacation. Even if they had just gotten back from 1969... which was kind of a vacation in itself.

This planet was quiet. It had been devoid of the Goa'uld for at least a generation, Daniel supposed, based on the condition of the ruins, though the original buildings appeared to have been more hut-like than they'd seen out of any Goa'uld previously.

"The language appears to be some derivative of Inuit," Daniel proclaimed, as he joined the rest of the group at the FRED.

Sam squeezed a dollop of cream onto her fingertips and passed the tube to him. She slathered the stuff onto the back of her neck and then onto her cheeks and nose and chin.

"Like Eskimos?" the colonel asked.

"Yeah."

"It's not exactly cold here," the colonel pointed out.

"You don't think the people could have adapted in the hundreds or thousands of years they'd been on this planet?"

The colonel didn't seem to have an answer.

"Besides, unless they were Goa'ulded, how could anyone have survived the radiation?"

"I suppose people could have evolved to survive longer in the sunlight here, but I still don't think anyone could risk long-term exposure," Sam said.

"We've never known a Goa'uld not to have slaves," Daniel said.

"And clearly, if there were buildings, there were people."

"Perhaps they were nocturnal," Teal'c said.

Sam, Daniel and Colonel O'Neill went quiet. Then, "Yeah," the colonel said, nodding, "perhaps they were."

Just then a bolt of lightning ripped across the sky.

"Whoa," the colonel exclaimed.

Thunder boomed a few seconds later.

"The storm must be close," Sam noted.

"Let's get back to it and get done so we can pack it in before we get rained out."

"Great, holing up in tents through a storm. Sounds fantastic," Daniel mumbled.

"Better than being out in the storm," Sam said. "Besides, we can play cards or something."

"I've got stuff I can go over," he said offhandedly.

"Sure," she said idly, she'd just offered to get the sour look off his face. She'd rather shoot the shit with the colonel anyway. In the off moments on missions he'd get to telling stories of his earlier years in the field. His stories were ripe and ribald and never failed to make her chuckle.

"I'll play cards with you, Carter," the colonel offered, bumping her shoulder with his.

"Thanks, sir."

They all broke off in different directions as the storm threatened and the sky turned darker. Daniel went back to his ruins to take more pictures, Sam went back to finish collecting samples so she could get to the succumb to the more alluring pull of the DHD, and Teal'c and the colonel went to securing the FRED and the camp respectively.

She was just pulling the cover plate off the DHD when the first drop of rain splashed down on her forearm. "Damn it," she cursed lowly.

"Now now," she heard from just behind her, "it'll still be here tomorrow."

She looked over her shoulder to see the colonel looking down at her, his weight settled back over his heels, his hands folded over the top of his MP5. How long had he been standing there? She hadn't even heard him approach.

She slotted the cover plate back into place then spun in the dirt on her heels. He reached down a hand for her. She reached up and grasped his hand, palm to palm, and he hauled her to her feet. She was momentarily flummoxed by how close they were to one another and the tan-ness of his skin, the lines around his eyes, the flecks of gold in his irises that just caught the last rays of light struggling through the heavy storm clouds. She felt awareness flop around in her belly and she smacked it down. He wasn't a man, damn it, he was her commanding officer.

She was still casting around in his eyes for her better judgment when all hell broke loose. The skies opened up and rain poured down around them. Her t-shirt was instantly plastered to her body. He grabbed her upper arm and propelled her towards the tents.

She watched as Daniel and Teal'c dashed into the one farthest away as the colonel steered her towards the one closer by a few feet. He pushed her through the flap none too gently and was already zipping things up when she turned around. She could feel rivulets of water making their way down her neck into the back of her t-shirt and her trousers were sticking uncomfortably to her thighs. Her initial instinct was to take of her sopping wet clothes. And her dry things were right within reach. But... protocol said you didn't change in a mixed-sex tent. And honestly, with the moment she'd just had at the DHD, she realized exactly why such protocols were in place.

But apparently she must have looked as pathetic as she felt because even in the low light he said, "You look like a drowned rat."

"How is it you don't?"

"Because I'm rugged, Carter. Built for the inclements."

She snorted. "Right."

"I'll turn around, if you want to change."

"Maybe my shirt," she hedged.

"Whatever you like," he offered, and he sounded sincere, even presented her, immediately, with his back.

She dallied only a moment before lunging at her pack. She pulled out a fresh t-shirt and pair of trousers. If he was going to give her the time and space to change, she might as well take it. She hurriedly stripped out of her wet clothing sparing only a moment to appreciate standing behind him first topless, in a regulation sports bra, and then a moment later, in just a t-shirt in panties, letting her brain flit through the possibilities for a nano-second before reminding herself, yet again, that he wasn't a man. At least as far as she was concerned, he wasn't. Even if he looked like a damn fine specimen of a man with that hair finely greying at the temples and...

Nope, Sam, stop it.

"Done," she said as she buckled her belt back into place and he turned around. His eyes fell to her hands and it felt a little illicit but it wasn't like his eyes did anything, they just... looked... at the brass and her short nails.

"Better?"

"Much."

"Good."

He pulled his hat off and raked a hand through his hair. "There's a flashlight around here somewhere..."

"Oh!" She rummaged around near her pack and found the flashlight slash lantern and switched it on into lantern mode and watched the place light up. She could see the way, then, that his wet shirt clung to his chest and she thought, for a moment, that maybe they'd been better off in the near dark. She realized, idly, she must be getting ready to start her period. She was always a little lusty around about that time.

"We don't really need it..."

"The batteries'll last," she said with a shrug, "we might as well use it."

"Yeah. Besides, these old eyes don't focus as well in low light anymore."

She scoffed.

"Shooting for brownie points, Carter? I already said you could take the DHD apart. But I think it's going to have to wait until tomorrow."

"I think so, too. By the time the storm lets up it'll probably be getting dark. Maybe we should have just gone home early."

"Daniel'd have had a conniption fit if you'd have even suggested it," the colonel said with a wave.

"He does have more work to do on the ruins..."

"But you're done getting the samples?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then the General will be happy. Mission's a success as far as he's concerned."

"Do you ever think he gives out cakewalk missions sometimes when things have gotten a little..."

"Hairy?"

"Yeah."

The colonel shrugged. "He says no. But Hammond's a good guy. If one came up, he might just move things around so that the right team got it..."

"And you think we were the right team this time around?"

"Things haven't been bad..."

"They've just been pretty full out lately."

"Yeah."

"Yeah," she said with a soft sigh. "This is actually kind of nice."

He grinned at her. "That big ol' brain of yours needed a break?"

"Maybe."

"And yet you still want to take the DHD apart?" He asked, his grin widening.

"Yes, sir."

He laughed. "Okay." He leaned over and pulled a pack of cards out of his pack. "So, I ever tell you about the time Kawalsky and I ended up in Tijuana?"

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

 **Day 2**

Jack woke up the next morning to the sound of Carter's watch alarm going off in the seconds before his own joined in. She stirred next to him, a tangle of arms twisting around her head then arcing in a graceful stretch that pulled his eyes towards her chest. He rolled his eyes at himself. She was his captain, his second in command, she might have well have been Kawalsky for all his body should be concerned. But something deep in his belly tightened painfully as she arched her back into the stretch and pointed out, rather unhelpfully, that shedefinitely wasn't Kawalsky.

It had been two years and he'd adjusted to her just fine. He liked her. He trusted her. He just had these... moments... where in his body forgot that it wasn't allowed to appreciate her the way it apparently wanted to. And she was a very appreciable woman. Even if he was too old for her. Not that it mattered.

"Morning, Colonel," she mumbled, without even looking at him, apparently sure he'd awoken immediately to the sound of their alarms, just as she had.

"Morning, Carter."

"Think Daniel's got coffee made?"

"Why do you think I put him on last watch?" Jack asked. Truthfully, he put the civilian on last watch for two reasons: the younger man was always the first to fall out at night and he was the most in need of a solid stretch of sleep. Teal'c didn't sleep and he and Carter had been trained to take watches. The coffee thing was just a bonus.

Carter pushed herself up and out of her sleeping bag and reached for her boots, apparently intent on coffee. Once she had hers on, she reached for his and passed them over to him. It was a nice little gesture, a feminine one, one that made him smile at her, and that made her smile back. Just a quick flash of bright eyes and white teeth, and then she was scrambling out of the tent, probably unsure of why he'd smiled at her at all.

The truth was, he thought as he put on his boots, that he liked the way Carter made him feel. She laughed at his jokes, she smiled at him just right, if he squinted really, really hard, he might just think that she liked him. And it felt good to think that a woman so bright and beautiful might be interested. Oh, he knew it was wishful thinking. He knew she was just being friendly, but it still felt good so he let the little bit of fantasy play out. What it might be like to be the object of Carter's desire.

Besides, mostly they were too busy to dwell on that sort of crap anyway, so it wasn't like it really went anywhere. It was more passing fancy than anything else. A bit of harmless fun. And if it meant he sometimes checked her out when she wasn't looking, well, he knew how to not be a pig about it.

Jack made his way out of the tent and sure enough, Daniel had coffee made. And Carter handed him a cup as soon as he joined the rest of the group around the now pitiful excuse for a fire. Daniel could do a lot of things, but keep a fire going wasn't one of them.

Once they'd all had coffee and taken their latrine breaks, they broke camp and stowed their gear on the FRED. Daniel still had some exploring to do on the ruins and Carter wanted to get her hands inside the DHD – to do what he wasn't sure, she'd said they were all the same. Truthfully, though, he'd watch her take apart a toaster oven to get to see that look on her face of complete rapture. Like the universe was a wonder. And maybe the crystal technology really was that cool. Stuff like that was lost on him.

So for a few hours Daniel took photographs and catalogued things and Carter reverently took the DHD apart, dismantling it gently, per his instructions the day before, and then, after she'd run her fingers over every facet of crystal in a way that made his own body start to sing, she'd put the thing back together.

"You sure it's going to work?" he asked her.

She jumped, he'd snuck up on her. She spun on her heels in the dirt and looked up at him from her crouched position. "Yes, sir."

"Good because it looks like a storm is moving in."

She looked dubiously up at the sky. Storm clouds were, indeed, collecting.

He handed her a rain slicker, folded up neatly in a little square. "You might want this."

"Thanks, sir."

He waved her off as she shook the slicker out and put it on. They still had samples to stow on the FRED and a bit of work left to be done and she barely had the poncho on before raindrops started to fall.

"Good timing," she said.

He shrugged. He'd always had good timing. He lifted the hood of his own slicker into place and went to help Daniel secure the last of his things before water ruined them.

It took only minutes for the rain to turn into a deluge and for the winds to turn gale force. He watched as Carter shouldered her pack and made a dash for the DHD, ready to dial. She looked at him for direction and he made a dial it up motion in the air with his finger and she began slapping at the glyphs on the device.

Moments later the familiar kawoosh broke through the sound of the storm and Jack used the remote to maneuver the Fred through the gate and sent their supplies home. Around them, the storm was turning into a rager. Carter still stood at the DHD but Teal'c and Daniel – who was busy sending his IDC – were on the gate platform.

"Go! Go! Go!" His voice forced Carter into action and he saw her make her move from the DHD towards the gate.

Jack waved wildly for his team to hustle through the gate. The storm whipped his rain poncho around into his field of vision and he saw lightning come damnably close to striking the DHD. "Go!" he shouted again though his voice was probably lost to the howling wind.

Daniel first, then Teal'c disappeared through the gate. Just as Carter reached the top of the platform another bolt of lightning came down and made direct contact with the DHD. The gate seemed to surge and then blink out.

"Carter!"

"Sir!" she turned and shouted back but he wasn't sure if she'd heard him or if she was trying to get his attention.

He ran the rest of the way to the platform and looked up at her from the bottom of the steps. "Carter, the DHD was hit." He gestured towards it and it was, indeed, smoking and the pedestal casing had been blown apart.

She looked puzzled.

"Lightning."

Her mouth formed an 'o' and she nodded. A gust of wind blew rain into her face and she wiped her eyes. "I can fix it!"

"Negative, Captain. I just watched two lightning bolts play chicken with that DHD, you're not going in," he shouted back.

She looked at him helplessly as if she didn't know what to do if he wouldn't let her fix it.

"We need to find shelter until this storm passes."

"What about Daniel and Teal'c?"

"For now we'll have to assume they made it home safe," he said and gestured her down the steps.

"But, sir!"

"What do you expect to do, Carter?"

"Just let me try to dial it."

Frustrated, he waved her forward and watched vigilantly for more lightning as she tried, with little success, to dial their home coordinates.

"It won't dial home, sir!" she shouted over another particularly bad gust of wind.

"Shelter, Carter."

"Yes, sir!"

They made a run for the mountains they'd been camping at the base of for the last four days. He pointed out the cavern Daniel had found and discarded as not very interesting on the first day. He followed her in, dropped his pack, then dug around for a flashlight to shine around the cavern. Damn, but that rain had been cold.

Underneath his poncho his BDUs were wet. Those slickers were little good in winds as high as they'd just experienced.

"It's like a hurricane out there," Carter said as if she were reading his mind. "But according to the UAV mapping, we're nowhere near water."

"I don't care why it's storming. It's cold and wet. That's enough info for me."

She grinned at him, "Yes, sir."

Inside the cavern, without the wind, the temperature was almost comfortable and it didn't take long for his body heat to catch up with his sodden clothing. Carter wasn't quite as lucky and she shivered from time to time. "We can't build a fire in here," he told her, "no ventilation. But when the storm clears we'll see if we can find something else."

"I'm fine, sir. And when the storm clears I want to look at that DHD."

"It took a direct hit."

"It looked like it."

"But you think you can fix it?"

"I don't know, sir, we'll have to wait and see."

It rained well into darkness before clearing enough to leave things workable and first she'd tried working on the guts of the DHD by the light of his flashlight - which he pointed where she asked with absolutely zero grumbling for which he was rather proud of himself. In the low light, though, she had little luck.

They rolled out soggy bedrolls and camped overnight in the cavern.


	2. Chapter 2

**Day 3**

The next morning she woke up stiff and cold, the rocky ground did nothing for her back and the dampness they'd brought in from the rain never really dissipated. It did little for her disposition in the wake of knowing the DHD was down and they were stranded for god knew how long on this planet with no one but each other for company.

It wasn't that she didn't like him, she did. But the colonel could be like a boy sometimes, and sometimes that boy could be rather annoying. And one never knew when they were going to get annoying little Jack and she was due to start her period any time and she really, reallydidn't want to be stranded.

She rolled over to find she wasn't the only one awake, though. He was inventorying his pack, hers was still propped neatly against the shelter wall, likely waiting for her to wake up and do it herself. She smiled inwardly. He was well within his rights to do the inventory on her pack as well, but apparently he felt like she still deserved a little privacy. She appreciated the thought, considering she didn't really want him encountering her dirty underwear, even if she did pack like an obsessive compulsive and wrap everything up neatly so Daniel, who had a penchant for going through her pack to get whatever he might need, wouldn't encounter her underthings.

"Morning, sir," she said, her voice sounding loud in the small, rocky space.

"Morning, Carter." He gave her a few minutes to get up and around before he nodded in the direction of her pack. "We need an inventory. We've got what we've got."

"Yes, sir." Silently she went through her pack. She didn't have any clean clothes, but she had enough clothing that if they found water she could at least wash and still have something to wear. Thank all that was holy, she had a package of tampons and a small bottle of ibuprofen. They'd both be glad she had that around about day three when the cramps got so bad she'd become nearly useless without the painkillers.

She scored when she dug a little deeper, having already forgotten what she'd done. "We've got several days of powerbars if we're careful, sir. I threw two handfuls into the bottom of my pack before we left."

He looked impressed and scratched at his stubbly cheek. "That's... awfully damned convenient."

She couldn't help but smile at him. "Yes, sir. Rather fortuitous. Though in all fairness, I tend to do that if we're going to be off world for more than a couple of days because Daniel snacks. A lot. But he remembered to grab some this time, too, so he didn't dig into my supply."

"Still."

"Yeah..."

She went back to her pack, but there wasn't much else besides a first aid kit, a tube of sunscreen, some chapstick and her canteens.

She relayed her contents to him and he showed her that he didn't have much of use, either, less of use than she had, really, as at least she had something they could eat, and they settled in against one of the rock walls to contemplate the next steps.

"We need a better shelter," he said to her over a breakfast of power bars and water.

"What's wrong with this one?"

"We have to build the fire outside in the elements. We need to be able to protect a fire but not smoke ourselves out."

She knew that, of course, but he'd been kind of quiet all morning - true Colonel O'Neill in thinking mode - and it was nice to keep him talking.

"We've seen all the caves several kilometers in each direction along the base," she reminded him. "None of them jump out as ideal shelters." The caves had definitely not once been shelter to humans based on the research Daniel – and the poking around that the colonel and Teal'c – had done. They were simply too shallow and not enough protection from the elements. They were more like little alcoves in the rocky outcroppings of the mountain formations than they were like actual caves.

"We'll have to look again. If we can find a well ventilated one we might be able to do without building something."

"I don't want to go too far from the gate," she said.

"You really think you're going to be able to fix it?"

No, she didn't think that. But what else was she supposed to do with her time? Learn to make cloth from indigenous fibers? She refused to believe they were stranded forty thousand light years from Earth. "I can try," she said and shoved her power bar wrapper back into her pack.

It took only a few hours. They found an alcove somewhat smaller but with natural flues that would draw the smoke up out of the living area. Without a fire burning, the area was a little drafty but nothing that would be a problem unless the weather turned unexpectedly cold.

"We'll need to lay in some supplies. And we'll need fresh water."

"Where there are mountains there must be some fresh water," she mused.

"I'm going to go see what I can find. You want to fiddle around with the DHD for a little while?"

"Yes, sir." She was grateful to not be on the hunt for water, and he was probably grateful for a little time alone. It had been a four day mission and now another day on their own already and he liked his downtime. He'd probably find the search for water somewhat relaxing.

"If I'm not back by dark, send the search party," he joked, then he was on his way.

She turned her attention to the DHD but didn't put her hands on it right away. It was still gaping open the way she'd left it the night before and it looked so... problematic. Usually she'd dive right in, but after last night's failure and the feeling of foreboding that was slowly taking over, she really had no idea where to start. She was glad to be alone through the feelings. She didn't want to have to fess up to them. Or name them, really, which is what she would have had to do if the colonel was present.

Slowly, she took each crystal out of the housing and laid it aside in the dirt, the unfamiliar striations that were a result of the lightning strike stood out in stark relief. She sighed. It was clear what she needed but short of the appearance of more Goa'uld technology she had no clue how to get it. And fixing the DHD without more crystals was beyond her current level of comprehension when it came to the alien technology. Perhaps if she had some sort of Earth technology she could interface with the DHD but they hadn't even come that far... yet.

She sat back on her haunches and let the feelings of hopelessness wash over her while she was alone and didn't have to put on her super-captain face for the colonel. She knew, once he was back, she was going to have to put on her "we're going to get out of this" front and figure out some way to either get them home or get them through to getting home – not that he wouldn't do his part. He'd keep them alive, but the science would be up to her, there was no doubt about that. So if there was a way off this rock, she was going to have to find it.

She let the tears well up in her eyes, let the sheer fear and frustration break forth for just a moment. They were stuck, trapped, stranded on an alien planet. Even if the SGC could dial back through to them, which apparently they couldn't or they'd have done so already, they couldn't send help back through the gate because there was no way to get the help and Sam and the colonel back home. They could wait for the Tok'ra. But who knew how long long it would take to first get a message to them, then to have a ship become free to save them, then get the ship to them? She tried to do the math in her head, but she realized she couldn't do it without knowing the speed of the particular ship the Tok'ra might send and whether or not hyperspace was an option.

She looked back at the crystals and the stretches of opaque lines webbing through them. She ran her fingers over the once smooth surfaces and felt the minute yet tell-tale microscopic cracks. The crystals were dead, there was no saving them. There were two small ones that seemed to have survived the strike, but if Sam had her druthers, and in a perfect world, she'd replace those too.

She heaved one last gigantic sigh and crouched down on her hands and knees and stuck her head into what was left of the DHD housing. The very least she could do is get things cleaned up so if by some miracle she was able to do something about the crystals she'd have somewhere worth putting them back into.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Jack left her with the DHD. He figured there was no way she could fix it, but her analytical brain would appreciate trying a lot more than it would appreciate the fishing he was planning to do, assuming he found the water he figured there was somewhere up the side of that mountain. A shame, really. He thought she might enjoy fishing if she'd give it a chance.

He wanted to put his money on Carter fixing the DHD, but with limited tools and no contact from the SGC, he was starting to suspect they might be in for an extended stay. Jack knew he'd take being stranded a helluva lot easier than she would. Not that he wanted to be stranded. But, if there was a food source, it wasn't the worst place they'd been – barring the pesky UV radiation problem – and he didn't have any complaints about who he was stranded with.

It wasn't just that she was easier on the eyes than one of the guys, but she was smart. Damned smart. And resourceful. And had survival training. No, if he had to be stranded with only one other quarter of the team, he was stranded with the right quarter. Of course, having no true idea just what was out there on this planet, he did sort of wish for Teal'c a little. The man was almost preternatural in his ability to detect... things.

Jack half walked half climbed for the better part an hour before he heard the sound of water. He followed his ears and a worn yet overgrown path to a stream that was obviously more than just a source of water but also a source of food – the fish were visible in the clear water. He took some time to fill the three canteens he carried with him, the fourth he'd left with Carter, and drop in purification tablets. Sure, the water looked as crystal clear as any he'd ever seen, but parasites were tiny little buggers and they couldn't afford to run the risk of either of them getting sick. But, eventually, he noted, they'd run out of purification tablets. What then? He shrugged. Until then...

Jack located a long, willowy stick and fixed it up with the non-regulation fishing line and hooks he usually carried. He'd found several uses for them over the years, not the least of which had been alien fishing when he found himself with some downtime while the scientists scienced.

He dug around a little and found something that resembled an earthworm. He wasn't sure what alien fish ate, but it seemed as good a bait as any. After a couple hours of easy fishing he'd felt more than a few nibbles and it made him feel better about their prospects. He figured he'd fish for real when it became necessary that they catch dinner, but the power bars would do for the night, and he wanted to find some way to cook the fish anyway, some sort of waxy leaf to wrap them in or some green sticks to impale them on for roasting.

As the sun got high in the sky he moved down to the stream and found a small pool where he took the opportunity to wash his clothes. He stripped down to his skivvies and waded into the water. He began by giving himself a thorough, if soapless, scrubbing. After that, there was a rock in a convenient place to wash his clothes. He scrubbed until he felt like maybe he'd washed out the worst of the sweat and dust from the previous days and then laid them out to dry on a flat rock on the bank. He applied sunscreen all over his body, all the places he could reach, anyway, then laid back in the grass in the shade of a scrubby tree and let his feet dip into the cool water.

Once his clothing had dried, and it didn't take more than a few hours in the blazing sun, he redressed. On his way back down to the stargate he found some suitable leaves for fish cooking and he collected them for the next day, and enough for the next and likely the next, too. He stowed those as well as some firewood in the little alcove then built a ring of stones for their evening fire. After that, he went in search of his scientist. He found Carter half in and half out of the DHD cursing up a blue streak.

"If you don't talk nice to it, it's never going to work."

She scooted out and sat back on her heels. "No, sir, I'm pretty sure it's never going to work anyway."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

She'd futzed and fussed with the DHD until dusk hoping something new would jump out at her. And it was nice to be around in case the SGC was suddenly able to make contact. Which was, in hindsight, probably the reason he'd left her with the gate in the first place rather than believing she might be able to do anything with the fried DHD.

She'd heard him coming long before he spoke. And his sentiments aside, her thoughts remained the same – the DHD was D. E. A. D. Dead.

He continued talking as if she hadn't just proclaimed them stranded. "Plenty of fresh water to be had just an hour's walk from here." She scrambled out of the DHD and looked up at him.

It still seemed like a long way to her, especially if they were going to be stuck on the planet for any length of time.

"If we can't get this thing working, we'll move," he said, sympatico as always. It might have been the look on her face. She figured they'd be moving on the next day, then, but didn't say so right away.

If the water was just an hour's walk away, though, she wondered how he'd spent his day.

"The fishing might be good, too," he'd said before leading her back to the cavern. Inside she found a collection of firewood, a ring of stones and the rest of their canteens, presumably filled with water.

Sam pulled a couple of power bars out of her pack and handed one to him. "Do you look... cleaner?"

He ripped the cellophane open and took a bite of the bar as he nodded. "Yep," he said around a mouthful. "Found a bit of a pool. Washed my clothes. Gave myself a onceover. Should have taken my soap with me."

She chuckled. "Next time."

"Yeah. Figured you might want to go up tomorrow, wash your things, get a bath?"

"Is that a hint?"

He flashed her a grin. "I'd never say anything..."

"But..." She grinned back at him though they let the subject drop. His eyes sparkled in the last rays of light that were filtering into the little alcove. He had nice eyes, she decided, and not for the first time. They were in turns kind, mischievous, hard, and calculating. She liked the evolution from this man she was sitting with to the colonel she oft saw scan a horizon with his MP5 held aloft.

In truth, she felt like she could use a bath. In the days they'd been on the planet she'd cleaned up with wet-wipes, same as the guys had and it helped keep things under control, but there was nothing like coming into contact with water – even if it was brisk mountain water. She'd take her little bar of military issue soap up to the place he'd direct her to and she'd get a bath and wash her clothes and she'd feel better about everything, she just knew she would. Stranded would look better with clean hair. It just had to.

The colonel took the last bite of his power bar and then crumpled up the wrapper and shoved it into his pocket. "It's not really cool enough for a fire," he hedged.

"But the light would be nice." The sun was steadily going down and it would be nice to sit around a fire with him, even if it would get rather warm in their little space. But the fire was nice, and familiar, and comforting.

"Yeah," he said. And he went about building it.

Soon enough he had a small fire going and the light was dancing off the walls of the cave and the planes of his face. It made the silver at his temples somehow more prominent even as it made the deep brown richer. His skin, already sun burnished, looked almost decadent in firelight and... geez, Sam, she thought to herself, get a grip. So he was good looking. He was literally the only man on the planet. She thought she was probably keying into him a little for that fact as well as the period thing, too.

They sat up for a while talking about the fishing until he started to yawn and she realized he'd hiked probably pretty far and half of that up a mountain. When they bedded down it was into warm, dry bedrolls, thankfully, and she was glad the weather'd held up that day. She wasn't sure she'd have been able to take stranded and deluged upon all in the same day.

As she drifted off to sleep she tried to focus on the more immediate thoughts of getting through the next day and the next rather than the long term prospect of what it meant to be isolated on the planet for the long term. If she just thought about it in terms of tomorrow, she thought maybe she could handle it. She could handle it. She could.


	3. Chapter 3

**Day 4**

Jack was packing up the next morning when Sam rolled over. He was surprised the sounds he made hadn't woken her but that the light beep-beep of her watch alarm had. He shrugged, _conditioning_.

She woke with a low moan and pressed a hand low on her belly. It had been a while, but he'd been a married man once and that looked and sounded familiar. He felt an instant flash of sympathy for her having to deal with... _that_... on top of everything else and hoped she was _prepared_. But then he realized it wouldn't matter if she was or not because she wouldn't be the next month, or the month after that. Or after that. He grimaced. When he was married you couldn't have paid him enough to think about periods, but here he was stranded with a woman under his command and he felt, well, a little obligated to at least... _care_. Even if he'd never say a word to her about it.

She rolled onto her side and curled herself into the fetal position, content, apparently, for a moment to not swim all the way into wakefulness despite her surroundings. But then she groaned and pushed herself up off the stony floor and made for her pack. She rifled through it, pocketed something and grumbled, "Morning, be back," in his general direction, before taking off.

He grinned at the now empty space. She was going to be a ray of sunshine today. He wasn't generally unantagonistic, and he knew that. But, he'd try for her, today, to be less of a general pain in the ass.

When she returned she was less grumbly and more captain-y even as he told her they were breaking away from the gate now – she'd seen it coming, he knew she had – because they needed better, more permanent shelter and they couldn't very well build something out of the massive trees in the area. They needed to find something that maybe someone had lived in before that was more intact. Or they needed to find some smaller trees and something they could build tools out of so they could build something. They had to start thinking long-term. Or longer-term. It would take a while for a ship to come.

He'd done all his thinking before she woke up so he didn't explain any of that to her, but she knew. She'd arrived at his way of thinking before he had, he was sure, while she'd spent the day before alone at the gate. So, as he did, she shouldered her pack.

He led her up to the pool he'd bathed in the day before and left her there to do her laundry and take a bath of her own while he went on and fished. Hours later she joined him smelling like Air Force issue soap and sunshine and damn if that wasn't just a little intoxicating.

"Feel better?" His voice was scratchy from the disuse of the day; he realized that they hadn't talked much that morning and he hadn't exactly been talking to the fish.

"Much. Thanks."

"I caught dinner," he said and gestured at a couple of fish lying next to him on a bed of the waxy leaves.

"Thank god," she said, sounding relieved. "I'm already sick of power bars."

He was worried about what that said for her stranded staying-power, but they'd made a handful of meals in a row out of them so he supposed he couldn't really fault her for the sentiment.

Later, they hiked some more until they found a place they could safely build a fire and stretch out their sleeping bags – and hoped for no rain – and roasted fish wrapped in leaves in the coals of a fire. The fish was mild and flaky and tasted damned good after all the power bars, even if it was probably the boniest fish he'd ever had to pick through.

When they laid down for the night she seemed reluctant to sleep, or maybe it was discomfort keeping her awake, so he told her stories about his exploits in flight school – the ones that didn't involve girls – until she drifted off. He stared up at the constellations for a while and wondered why he was so reluctant to tell her about his wild oat sewing and if that meant anything at all.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

 **Day 5**

Sam woke up feeling more comfortable than she had in a while and she attributed it to the fresh mountain air and the bath she'd had the day before. She'd finally started her period so she was otherwise crampy and a bit irritable though she was trying very diligently to keep that particular part of her personality hidden from her commanding officer.

But there were storm clouds swirling in the sky and the colonel was prodding her to get moving despite the fact that she hadn't yet had an opportunity for a morning latrine break and in just a moment he was going to get the sharp side of her tongue. He was smiling at her but it looked just a little ornery. She took a few deep breaths and he looked at her crosswise and she wondered if he suspected that her temper wasn't entirely under her own control.

She excused herself and by the time she returned she was feeling slightly more magnanimous – enough so that his smile had returned to charming. She heaved a sigh as she shouldered her pack and fell into step behind him. She didn't want to find him charming. It was bad enough she found him attractive but things were going to get very difficult if she found him both handsome and charming. Why couldn't he be a jerk?

But all day, as the skies threatened rain and they searched for a place to use as shelter should the rain actually start, he was... kind. He wasn't even the boyish sort of annoying she knew he could be when the mood struck him.

When they came across some wild berries that looked very much like blackberries, he offered to test them out. She watched as he carefully smashed one of the berries and rubbed it onto the sensitive skin of his inner forearm. When nothing adverse happened she watched him rub berry pulp on his lips. It left them looking very red and gave her the distinct urge to lick the juice from his lips. She found herself mesmerized by the sight. When still, no adverse reaction occurred, he popped a berry into his mouth and chewed it up.

While they waited, she sat down on the ground at his feet and told him about the time she'd eaten locusts in Iraq. It seemed safer to talk about bits of life that were inconsequential than it did about things she'd miss, like her friends or her family or her job...

Five minutes later he swallowed, popped a couple more berries in his mouth and declared them most likely edible and they picked all they could get their hands on. If he was still alive and not puking in twenty minutes then he'd eat some more. If he was still alive in the morning then she'd have some for breakfast.

She wasn't sure how she felt about him being the sacrificial lamb, but she figured he'd argue something about the privileges of rank and that would have been that.

The rain never did come but they didn't bunk down for the night until they found a place where they could get their bags under a ledge and out of the potential weather. It was a tight squeeze and they spent the night, head to head, tucked up under that ledge of mountain that made her hope she didn't forget where she was and try to sit up in the middle of the night.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

 **Day 6**

He handed her a powerbar and a handful of blackberries and she beamed at him so hard it very nearly bowled him over, he grunted with the impact of it. "What?"

"I'm glad you're okay."

"Me too," he said offhandedly.

"And I'm glad I get to eat these." She popped one in her mouth, apparently intent on savoring them.

He was glad as hell that the berries hadn't killed him. Gladder still that now they had fish and berries on the menu to supplement the power bars that were, very quickly, running out. As a matter of fact, fishing was on the agenda today. They were going to have to stop and catch some food. They needed the calories and nutrition. He glanced at Sam who was happily munching on berries. What he wouldn't give to be able to supplement her diet with a little iron, but they were going to have to make do with what they had.

"We'll have to stop for fish today."

"I thought so. If you want, I'll wash your spare clothes while you do that."

He looked at her sharply. The offer was a kind one. And a touch more... domestic... than he would have expected out of his captain. "Yeah?"

"Well, I did mine day before yesterday. And I could stand to do some more now. And if I'm doing mine, I might as well do yours, too."

"Thanks, Carter." He dithered when he gathered up his laundry about whether or not to hand over his shorts but realized if he didn't it would be conspicuous and it wasn't like his shorts were _problematic_. So he added them to the pile. A guy needed clean underwear anyway, didn't he?

They redistributed things in their packs so that all the laundry was in hers and all the _stuff_ was in his and they set off up the mountain until they found first a place that looked good for laundry where he left her and then he stopped another klick up the creek where there was a promising looking pool for fishing.

It didn't take him long to catch dinner and so he headed a little farther upstream until he came to a place that looked secluded enough that he could get a good bath in. He washed himself good with the Air Force issue soap and when he redressed, he shoved his dirty shorts down into his pack and let himself drip dry in the mottled shade of the trees on the bank of the creek. He knew he should be worried about the sun but he'd be redressed and slathered in sunscreen soon enough, he figured.

By the time he rejoined Carter he could tell she'd been in for a dip, too, as her hair was slicked back from her face and still damp. Their clothes were laid out on rocks in the sun and, when he touched a pair of his trousers, nearly dry.

"We didn't cover much ground today," he said as he took a seat on one of the rocks.

"No, sir. But we did get some things done. We can walk a while before the sun goes down," she offered.

"If we walk on, we could crest the mountain tonight."

"Okay," she said congenially.

"I want to see what's on the other side."

"Me too."

Then it was agreed. Not that he needed a consensus. But it was nice to have one, nonetheless.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

 **Day 7**

They made their way down the mountain at a pretty good clip. She stared at his pack, hard, as if she could see the play of his shoulders – she'd admit to a fascination with his shoulders – but it didn't seem to distract from the burning in her thighs.

They'd had a nice dinner of fish and berries the night before but her stomach was growling with the need for food at the same time she was cramping something awful and all of that, combined with the burning in her legs from his near breakneck pace had her finally, after a full day of traversing the mountain, calling out to him. "Sir, please."

He stopped on a dime and turned back to her.

It must have been the pathetic sound of her voice. "You okay, Carter?"

"I need to stop. Or slow down. Or maybe just take a break," she said as she dropped her pack.

He looked at her quizically and then walked back up the fifteen feet towards her. She could understand his confusion. In the two years she'd been on his team, she wasn't sure she'd ever asked him to slow down for her – not once. When he reached her, immediately his hands were on her face, turning her head so he could look into her eyes, for what she wasn't certain? Signs of fatigue, maybe. She thought it might have been a way for him to feel the heat of her skin, too, to determine if she was overly warm.

He released her face and grabbed a wrist, he conspicuously took her pulse, she waited patiently while he did so. "What's wrong?" He asked when her pulse apparently came back all right.

"I'm tired, sir," she admitted. "And hungry." And crampy, she thought, though she didn't add it to the list she shared with him.

He looked down at his watch and raised his eyebrows, apparently surprised to see how much of the day had gone by. She knew he'd had his sights set on the flat stretch of land between this mountain and the range not so far in the distance. They'd both seen the way their creek had widened into a river that cut the wide swath of land into two and they'd decided they'd follow it until they found the remnants of civilization.

But apparently his excitement had gotten the better of his internal clock. For it was late afternoon and they hadn't stopped for lunch or to rest and her body had finally just... given in.

"Sorry, Carter," he said as he unshouldered his own pack.

They both found rocks to sit on and made a lunch of the last of the power bars which prompted him to say, "I should fish."

"And I should find some more of those berries. Who knows if we'll see any once we get down there."

"So, maybe we call it a day for the traveling?"

"I think so."

He nodded, and looked wistfully down the trail. She felt bad for him. She knew how badly he wanted down there. It was a personal goal for him to get there, she realized.

"You know what? Let's get our fish, and our berries, and get our asses down this mountain. We can set up camp at the base."

"Carter-" he started.

She cut him off. "Nope," she got up and slapped her hands on her thighs. "Let's do this."

"Yeah?" He looked almost boyish to her in his excitement.

"Yeah." Something about that look on his face gave her a second wind. She wasn't going to examine that too closely.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

 **Day 8**

Jack came awake to the sound of his watch alarm as he did every morning off world. They were, as Carter had encouraged, camped at the base of the mountain.

He was glad to be off the damned mountain. They still had access to water being on the river the way they were and as near as he could figure, the only bad thing about being on the flats was that they didn't have ready access to shelter should more storms crop up. But the skies had been clear, so he was hoping that whatever system had blown in had passed. At least until they found some better shelter.

He looked over at her in her sleeping bag on the other side of the fire ring. She'd slept through the beeping of his alarm but hers went off as he watched her and she roused, moving sleepily and he actually wished she hadn't had the damned thing set and that she'd slept until she'd awoken naturally. She'd been tired the day before and she'd pushed herself. For him. They didn't need to be in an all-fire hurry. They _did_ need to find shelter and get out of the sun, because they _were_ going to run out of sunscreen. But she could afford to sleep in, especially camped out in the shade of a giant tree as they were.

"Morning," he greeted her as she turned towards him, stretching languidly, her body moving sinuously in her sleeping bag. He'd always done a good job of not focusing on her curves, but when she moved like that it was pretty hard not to...

"Mmm, morning," she said as she stretched.

The tone of her voice went straight down and wrapped around his dick and that was damned inconvenient. She was his second in command! And if he'd been noticing her as more than his second lately, well, it didn't really _mean_ anything. It was just that she was, well, pretty damned easy on the eyes and awfully damned impressive anyway. Who _wouldn't_ notice Carter? Noticing and doing were two different things, though, and he wasn't doing. Nosiree.

"I'm going to have to start fishing in the mornings, now that we don't have power bars," he told her. "Make sure we get food for the day."

"Okay." She finished torturing him and sat up in her sleeping bag. Her hair was a wild mass around her head. She looked... he wanted to say cute but his brain kept coming up with words that had more to do with sex. He needed to get laid. Apparently.

"You want to go down river some, where you'll have some privacy?" Why couldn't he just ask her if she wanted a bath?

She smiled. "Yeah. Might as well take the laundry with me," she said.

There wasn't much, it had only been two days, but better to stay on top of these things, he supposed.

So she packed up the laundry and set off for a more private locale and he set up for fishing right there by their little camp. By the time she returned, clean and with slightly damp clothing that she laid out to dry the rest of the way there at their camp, he had fish roasting over a newly built fire and he'd even taken the time to freshen up himself.

"We'll be able to cover some ground today after all," she said.

She was right. There were still hours of light left in the day.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

 **Day 9**

She woke to birdsong and remembered how he'd told her to turn her watch alarm off just before she'd drifted off the night before. She checked her watch and saw she'd gotten in an extra forty-five minutes and it felt... decadent... even if she was waking up on the hard ground in a sleeping bag instead of in her nice, soft bed at home.

She looked around and the colonel was nowhere to be found. She took the opportunity to have a latrine break then she went searching for him. She found him by the river, fishing in a little pool. He already had one small fish on the bank beside him.

"They're biting today," she said and sat down on the bank next to him.

"The fish here aren't too bright," he said with a low chuckle that made her insides clench in a way that made her roll her eyes at herself, "they bite everyday."

"Thanks for the extra sleep," she said.

"No sweat. It's not like there's a whole lot for us to be doing out here," he pointed out.

"I do feel a little... superfluous," she admitted. And she did. If he were stranded alone, he'd be surviving just fine without her. If she were stranded alone... she wondered if she'd be faring so well...

"Hey," he said lowly, causing her to look him in the eyes, "not superfluous, Carter. Never you." In his eyes was something deep and abiding. Something that was much richer than the lightness that normally passed between them. But the moment was fleeting. He smiled at her in the next moment. "What are we going to do if we come across some tech? You're our girl."

She flashed him a smile. "Yes, sir."

Just then, a fish bit on his line. She watched him go through the complicated process of lining in a fish without a reel but he managed it with aplomb and soon, there were two fish next to him on the bank. He rebaited his hook and dropped his line once more.

"More?" she asked.

"At least two," he confirmed.

She realized he was fishing for their entire days' meals so they could move along and not stop to fish again. It was one thing to stop to camp, another to stop completely to fish, even if he did keep his pole pretty well ready to go.

It took about an hour more but he finally had their food supply laid in for the day and she had to admit, even if it wasn't a traditional breakfast, she was hungry for the fish by the time he presented it to her. She wondered, how long was it going to take her to get tired of fish? Was there anything else to eat on this planet? They hadn't seen other wildlife up on the mountain, though she had heard the birdsong, even if they hadn't sounded big enough to eat.

"Anything's big enough to eat when you're hungry," he quipped when she shared her observation.

"You're keeping us in fish, I think we're fine."

"For now," he agreed.

But she had to wonder if he was concerned about a diet that consisted of only fish. She was. A little.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

 **Day 10**

Jack tried not let on how his knees were aching, but they'd been on the move for a week and dammit, they hurt. He couched the desire to soak his knees in the cool river as a desire for a bath and left her with their little camp while he went downstream some to find a secluded spot.

He was on laundry detail today and had not only his things, but Carter's as well. He did the wash before he took his bath and chuckled to himself when he realized that while he held a sports bra in his hands, he held no white, Air Force issue underwear. He supposed it was one thing to hand over his jockey shorts but it was another for her to hand over her panties.

He tried not to give too much thought to her underwear as he did the washing and then took his bath, but he found that, aside from the overarching theme of not having any idea where they were or where they were going, there wasn't much else to think about. He found that it was more fun to contemplate her underwear with her in them.

He literally shook himself to dislodge the thought of her in nothing more than her underwear, there in the water with him. He really had to stop that. He was going to drive himself nuts if he kept thinking about her that way. The best thing to do was to keep his professional distance.

Once he was sufficiently clean he did some fishing and caught their meals for the day. By the time he returned to camp she looked beyond bored. "Next time, at least leave me the laundry," she said dully.

He couldn't help but laugh. He'd had a full day, for sure, and it was only early afternoon. "What did you do?"

"Scouted for berries. They don't appear to grow here on the flats. But there's tons of this leafy green," she held some up and showed him, "that I think we should test out. If for no better reason than we probably need the nutrition."

He nodded. He'd test it out for her right away. She'd know by the next day if she could eat it. "Anything else?"

"I freshened up, down at the river. Nearly fell in," she rolled her eyes. "Was glad you weren't there to witness it."

He chuckled, he'd have enjoyed it, probably.

"But mostly, I was bored."

"Okay, from here on out, laundry is your thing." Besides, at least if she was doing it, all of it was getting done.

"I never thought I'd say this, but thank you, sir."

She did sound pretty grateful.

The argument came later when it came time to test out the new green. She thought she should be the one to test it. "Sir," she argued, "it makes sense for it to be me. You're much more likely to survive on your own here than I am if it turns out to be deadly."

"Carter," he started, but found he didn't have a real good argument besides he just didn't want anything bad to happen to her. "Your brain might be the only thing that can get us off this rock."

"We both know that's highly unlikely."

"Well, then how about no because I'm the colonel and I said so?"

She huffed petulantly, but apparently _because I'm the colonel and I said so_ was reason enough because she dropped it and handed him the leafy green.

He did the contact tests against his skin, tested the green against his lips and in his mouth, and finally he ate a small amount. When he felt fine twenty minutes later, he ate a measure more, all under her watchful eye.

She watched him carefully as they bedded down that night, never taking her eyes off him until she fell asleep.


	4. Chapter 4

**Day 11**

When he was fine the next morning, she made a breakfast out of the leafy green vegetation while he fished for their day's rations.

"I'd like to cover some ground today," he told her with his line in the water.

She handed him a few of the leaves and watched as he stuffed them into his mouth. "Yes, sir." She watched his jaw work as he chewed and let her eyes rove over the stubble there. He shaved off-world and had continued to shave while they'd been stranded, he just hadn't been as diligent about it since their stranding as he was when they were on a regular mission. And the result was this scruffy version of the man she was used to looking at. The scruffy version did funnier things to her insides than the clean-shaven one did. The hair on his jaw was even more salt and pepper than the hair on his head and it made her itch to run her fingers over it, to feel it scratch against her skin.

The weight of her gaze must have been heavy because he turned to look at her, one eyebrow raised in a fashion Teal'c would have been proud of. "What?"

She felt herself blush at being caught staring at him and answered quickly, "Nothing. Sir."

He quirked the corner of his mouth up at her a little, and she wondered if he knew she'd just been looking for the sake of looking, and then he turned back to his fishing.

She busied herself with packing up their meager camp while he fished and was done by the time he returned with their food. They cooked and ate the fish. And then, just before it was time to move out, Sam reminded him to slather on another protective layer of sunscreen. It was mesmerizing to watch him smooth the cream over his skin, more so than it had been previously and she wondered why she was suddenly so interested in his minute details.

With a grunt of dissatisfaction she turned her attention back to her own sunscreen application, but the sound drew his attention.

"Something wrong?"

"No, sir," she was quick to answer, sure she didn't want to explain to him what was on her mind.

"That sounded like something is wrong."

"Nope."

"Got a place you can't reach?"

She went momentarily liquid at the thought of his hands on her and she had to shake herself free of the phantom feeling. What was wrong with her? She needed to get a hold of herself. These thoughts were inappropriate. "No," she said quickly, "I'm fine."

"Sure," he said easily, shrugging one shoulder, and going back to rubbing the sunblock into his skin.

She noted that they were running dangerously low on the precious sunscreen. "We'll have to come up with something to use when we run out," she said and wiggled the tube she was using at him.

"Mud?"

"Probably," she said with a shrug. "I can't imagine what else. Can't say that I'm looking forward to that, though."

He chuckled. "Me either. But you look good in brown. It brings out your eyes."

Her eyes went wide at his observation, as joking as it might have been. His teeth flashed white as he grinned at her. "Thanks, sir," she said dryly, trying hard to fight the butterflies that erupted in her belly at the thought of him noticing her, at the look of the grin on his face, at his general countenance that day. "You wanted to cover some ground?" She asked after clearing her throat.

She cast her eyes to the side and saw his grin widen.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

 **Day 12**

He was... aware of her. It was the only way to put it. He'd said something stupid the day before about the color of her eyes and he hadn't been able to shake the feeling that he'd made a monumental mistake. At first saying little things to Captain Carter had been just... little things. But in the couple of weeks they'd been on this planet alone things between them had been shifting. At least, from his own perspective. He could feel the way he was looking at her changing.

And damn it but it felt like she was looking at him, too. He shook his head. But damn it all if he was going to make any sort of move on her.

"Everything okay, sir?" She walked up behind him and cast a shadow over his shoulder.

She must have seen him visibly shake her away. "Fine, captain," he said gruffly. Some of the leafy green appeared in her hand in his peripheral vision. He reached up and took it from her, careful to not touch her fingers with his own. "Thanks."

"Welcome." She sat down on the bank next to him. "No luck?"

"Not yet." And it had been an hour and a half. Either the fish were getting wise to him or he'd picked a bad spot. It was a little worrying. They needed the calories and they still hadn't seen any other wildlife. Surely there were other creatures living on this planet...

"I used the last of my sunscreen." She said it conversationally, but he knew she was worried.

"I've got some left."

"You might as well use it, sir. It doesn't really matter which of us uses it up."

"Your skin is fairer," he tried to argue.

"Really, sir," she said resignedly. "It doesn't matter. Who knows how long we'll be stranded here? What difference is one day going to make?"

And there it was. The thing neither of them had been brave enough to say thus far. The distinct possibility that they could, likely would, die of exposure on this planet.

"We'll find a solution."

"The mud thing might do." But she screwed her face up in a way that told him she wasn't too excited about smearing herself with the stuff. "I'll mix some up and test it to see if it's safe."

"Safe?"

"Who knows what's in this dirt?"

He hadn't thought of that. He knew to test potential food. But dirt? See? This was exactly why he needed her. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her that when he felt a nibble on his line. "Ah!" He exclaimed. "Lunch!"

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

 **Day 13**

The next morning, while the colonel fished, she made some mud out of the finer dirt up near the paths they walked on and the water from the river. She applied the mud in a small patch to the sensitive skin of her inner arm and allowed it to dry.

When it started to itch a half hour later she chalked it up to psychosomatics and went on about her way. But half an hour after that the colonel reached for her arm. "Carter," he barked, "aren't you paying attention to this?"

She looked down and saw that the skin around the patch of brown mud was an angry red and slightly swollen. "Oh," she said dumbly.

He practically hauled her down the bank of the river to the water's edge and began bathing her arm in the cool water, careful not to rub the affected portion of her arm to vigorously. She'd never known, as a matter of fact, that he could be so gentle. She was so bowled over, in fact, that she just let him care for her and she stood there, letting him wash the mud away.

"Didn't this hurt?"

"It itched, a little. But I thought it was in my head."

When he'd washed away all the mud he held her arm cradled in his hands and used his thumbs to soothe the reddened skin of the patch she'd abused with the mud. "Well, you're sure as hell not putting this stuff on your face."

"No sir, I think that would be a bad idea."

He sighed. "So now what?"

She shook her head. "I don't know."

"We need to find shelter. Or build shelter. Get out of this sun."

"And then what, sir? Become nocturnal? And how long do you think we can survive on this planet? How long would we want to?"

"Until rescue comes, Captain," he said stiffly, dropping her arm.

She felt bad for saying what she had, but surely they'd both been thinking it.

Later, he handed over the last of his final tube of sunscreen with a look that brooked little argument.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

 **Day 14**

Even though they spent a good portion of each day fishing and dealing with camp and personal hygiene, they were still covering a good deal of ground. She'd say they walked at least fifteen kilometers per day.

The day after they ran out of sunscreen? They walked thirty kilometers. He was clearly looking to get to some kind of shelter. She didn't say a word about their doubled hike she just dug in and followed him when he picked up the pace and when he continued to push on after the sun had begun to sink down past the horizon.

When they stopped to set up camp he seemed beyond tired and she built the fire while he scouted a latrine. When he returned there was gratitude in his eyes along with something else. Apology, maybe? He hadn't been very talkative all day, but at the pace they'd set, talking wouldn't have been all that easy anyway. And he hadn't been too chatty that morning while fishing or while they'd been eating either. Something was clearly on his mind.

"The terrain is changing," he said finally, his boots scuffing in the dirt near the fire.

She'd noticed that, too. They were moving away from the mountain range near the gate but nearer to another they'd seen in the distance. They had farther to go if they were going to approach it, and they'd have to change direction a bit, but they were getting nearer to it. "Yes, sir."

"Maybe we'll find something different now."

"Signs of life?" she questioned.

"That's what I was thinking."

"Maybe something to eat other than fish," she said wistfully.

"Yeah, even I'm a little tired of fish," he said and tossed a pebble into the fire. It sent up a shower of sparks.

Taking in his tired eyes she moved to unclip his bedroll from his pack and spread his sleeping bag out on the ground far enough from the fire that he'd be safe. He gave her an appreciative nod and it spread a warmth through her belly – both the action of having done something sort of intimate for him and the look he'd given her. She spread her own bedroll out then, took her boots off, and slid inside.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

 **Day 15**

The next morning, on his way to catch their day's meal he spotted a furry looking thing scampering off into the brush. He went tearing back into their little camp and roused Carter who had taken the sleeping in thing pretty seriously once he'd gotten her going on that.

"Carter," he said, nudging her shoulder gently with his foot, "wake up."

She came awake instantly, her eyes popping open, her hand reaching for her weapon. "What?"

"There _are_ other animals here. Let's go hunting."

It took her only moments to slide into her boots and then she was following him out of their camp.

"They're small. Greyish brown. Look like a giant squirrel," he told her. "I think. It was moving fast. It went off into the brush over there."

"How many did you see?" she asked quietly.

He hesitated momentarily. "One."

Her eyes snapped over to him. "One?"

"Well, where there's one there's probably more, right?"

She looked skeptical, but she agreed with him anyway. "Right."

He appreciated the support, however dubious it might have been. As they approached the brushy area, Jack held up his hand to stop her forward movement. "He might still be in here. If you see him, shoot him."

A smile quirked at her lips. "Yes, sir."

They moved through the brush slowly, but it was still a noisy venture and soon enough Jack caught sight of the little guy scampering off. He took aim and fired!

And missed.

"Dammit," he cursed.

Carter snickered, he heard it, even though she was a good fifteen feet away.

And then he heard the crack of her weapon an instant later. "Got one, sir."

He wanted to be irritated, but he was too damned impressed.

They cleaned the little beastie down by the water and roasted the meat over their campfire. It tasted a lot like pork.

"Not that I didn't appreciate the fish, sir, but this is..." She closed her eyes and made a satisfied sound in the back of her throat that made him tingle a little.

He couldn't help but chuckle. "I get it."

"It was quicker, too," she pointed out. "Though, I'm not sure it would always be. Sometimes hunting can take a while. But I'm not sure this was the same animal you fired at. They might live in that brushy area."

"Well, you hunt, I'll fish and we'll eat whatever we come up with first, how's that sound?"

"Like a plan," she said.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

 **Day 16**

The next day she provided their meal and they were off and hiking much earlier than they had been on fishing days. It did take time to clean the little critters but they seemed prevalent enough in the brush that finding and dispatching them was a quick and easy task.

They were able to go farther by starting earlier in the day, too, and that seemed to make the colonel happy. He was in a good mood all day, actually. Until they stopped, that is, and he took a good look at her.

"You're sunburned."

"No, I'm not," she protested. She lifted her hands to her face and ghosted her fingertips over her cheeks. They felt a little warm, she supposed but she wasn't in pain.

"Your chest and your shoulders are pink. Your hat must have kept most of the sun off your face."

She placed a hand flat on her chest and she could feel the heat radiating off her skin. "Oh."

"Yeah," he said, concern etched across his features. "Jesus, Carter, what's a sunburn in this place gonna do to you?"

"It's going to be a normal sunburn," she tried to reassure him, "the radiation burns would come with prolonged exposure. This isn't because of the radiation. This is because of my fair skin. I burn easily, that's all."

"Drop your pack."

She did, hissing as the straps scraped along her burned skin. He reached for one strap of her top and pulled it to the side exposing the white skin beneath and her bra strap. She craned her neck to see. The contrast between her pink skin and her fair skin was strong. His fingers felt cool against her heated skin. She leaned into him, just a little, not enough for him to really notice, she hoped.

"I've got some lotion in my pack, it'll have to do in the absence of aloe," she said.

"You've got to be more careful, Carter."

"I didn't get burnt on purpose," she pointed out. "I didn't even notice it was happening."

"Still," he said, almost petulantly and it nearly made her smile.

That night, after they built their fire and set out their bedrolls, she took the time to rub lotion into the burned areas of her chest and shoulders.

"Here," he said, making a motion for the tube she held.

"What?"

"I'll get the back."

Slowly, she handed the tube over. She supposed, if pressed, she couldn't _really_ reach properly. And it wasn't _wrong_ for him to rub lotion into her shoulders, right? She presented him with her back. She listened as he squirted the lotion into his hands and then his cool fingertips were on her shoulder blades barely dipping underneath the edges of her top sure to cover every square inch of sunburn she had.

He didn't linger over the task the way she hoped he might have and soon enough the tube of lotion appeared over her shoulder and his hands were no longer on her body. "Thank you, sir," she said.

"Yeah," he said, his voice unusually gruff.

"I think I'll turn in now."

"Sleep tight, Captain."

But sleep took a long time to claim her.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

 **Day 17**

Jack awoke to raindrops pelting his face. "Sonuvabitch," he swore. "Carter, you up?"

"Yes, sir," he heard her sleeping bag rustling and looked over to see she was already rolling the thing up to attach to her pack.

The rain never developed into anything driving, it stayed at an annoying drizzle all day, just enough to soak them and their gear to the bone bit by agonizing bit rather than all at once in a deluge.

He looked over at Carter. She looked irritated with the water that was running in rivulets down her neck. She wiped at the water there futily and huffed a little. Despite his own discomfort, he couldn't help but smile a little. And let his eyes wander. The water made her shirt cling to her in ways that were very... becoming. She cleared her throat and his eyes snapped up to her face to see if he'd been caught staring but she was looking off in the distance. Apparently, his little guilty pleasure was still his own little secret.

By the time they stopped for the night the rain had stopped but their clothing hadn't had a chance to dry out at all. And neither had their bed rolls. Neither had, for that matter, the ground. They made do with their soggy bedrolls to keep them up off the mud, at least, and chatted despite the absence of their nightly fire.

"Well, today sucked," he said, trying to get comfortable but knowing it was a moot point with the way his clothes were sticking to him.

She chuckled a little. "Yes, it did, sir."

"Tomorrow will be better," he decided.

"What if it rains again?"

"It wouldn't dare," he said in the most colonel-y voice he could muster.

That earned him an all out belly laugh. "Yes, sir." Then, she sighed.

"What is it, Carter?"

"Just... we've been walking for a long time. And we haven't found anything we could use as a shelter or that we could build a shelter with. What are we going to do? We can't just... be exposed to the elements all the time."

He had the sudden urge to reach for her. To reassure her physically that everything was going to be okay. And that was a new urge when it came to seconds-in-command. "We'll be okay. We'll figure it out. The terrain has changed once, it'll change again," he said with more surety than he really felt. "And the people on this planet had to have lived somewhere. We'll find it."

"We can't walk forever," she said quietly.

"We'll walk as long as we have to."

She sighed again, "Yes, sir."

He wanted to tell her that it wasn't just up to him, but if he had to keep her going, he would. If he had to keep the command structure intact to keep Samantha Carter together – and who would have thought anything at all would break her down? - then that was what he'd do. Even though, he had kind of been looking forward to dropping their respective ranks and titles if this whole stranded thing was really going to linger. Not that he wanted to _take advantage_ of anything, but it would be nice to not have to be her CO the whole time and to get to be, well, her friend. But he'd play it however she needed him to. And if she needed Colonel O'Neill, then that was exactly who he'd be.


	5. Chapter 5

**Day 18**

They approached an outcropping of mountain. "Which way," he asked her, leaning against the rocks.

She pulled up short. Which way? He was asking her? She had no idea! "Ummm..."

"C'mon, Carter, there's no wrong answer here, we're exploring!" He threw his arms out wide and indicated each direction. "One way might be shelter, one way might be the adventure of a lifetime. We won't know until we try."

He seemed serious about her choosing. So she peered left and then peered right. She walked to the left twenty five paces and then back to the right, past him and then twenty five paces more.

Finally, he huffed. "Carter, just pick a direction."

She pointed, finally, to the right. "That way."

"Okay." He started walking.

"Don't you want to know why?" she asked as she hurried to follow him.

"Nope."

She rolled her eyes and shook her head, but she couldn't help the smile that bloomed across her face. She led them onward. They followed the base of the mountain for a good couple of hours until it took a sharp bend and then, inexplicably, nestled in the crook created by the bend of the mountain range was a sight that drew her up short. So short, in fact that the colonel walked straight into her back.

"Geez, Carter, what's-" and then he looked up, too, and whistled lowly. "I guess we found civilization."

Spread out in front of them was a small but fairly bustling village. "Sir," she said unsteadily, suddenly overcome with relief to not be one of only two people on the planet.

He clapped a hand on her shoulder. "Yeah," he said, seeming to understand exactly what had her voice shaking. "Let's take a minute to assess." He dropped his pack.

She dropped hers, too. If he wanted to take a moment to figure out how to proceed, she wasn't going to argue. She was downright flabbergasted to find people on the planet.

"We can do one of two things," he said, obviously thinking aloud for her benefit. "We can turn tail and head in the other direction, seek shelter of our own and do our best to hold out for rescue. Or, we can take our chances with those villagers. Hope they're friendlies and that they can provide us with safety and shelter until help arrives."

He paused then and looked at her, one eyebrow raised and she realized he was waiting for her input. She turned to peer towards the village once more. "Can I borrow your binoculars, sir?" Without a word he pulled them out of his pack and handed them over. She looked through them and studied the village more closely. It, and the people, looked normal enough. And relatively harmless. The people weren't covered by anything and she wondered about their relationship with the sun and how they survived out in it. "I don't know how these people survive here, but maybe we can learn something from them that will help us survive until rescue comes," she finally said.

"So... the village it is," he said.

"The village," she agreed, handing his binoculars back to him.

He put them back then re-shouldered his pack. He helped her heft hers as she slipped her arms through the straps. Sam felt a distinctive spring in her step as they made their way towards the village. Sure, there were the familiar first-contact butterflies because you never quite knew what you were going to get, but, as always, the colonel's familiar presence helped quell the worst of the worry. Something about knowing he was right behind her – or sometimes in front of her – gave her the courage to step forward and meet these new people, one civilization at a time. Perhaps it was knowing that he wasn't going to let something bad happen to her without at least doing everything in his power to stop it or make it right. He'd proved that well enough on one of their very first missions and that lesson had stuck with her since he'd bought her back and allowed her to fight a fight he was well within his rights to stand her down for.

They were, maybe, two hundred yards from the village when they were spotted. What appeared to be a child from that distance began making a big commotion.

"Guess we're not going to just slip in quietly," the colonel said wryly.

People began to gather but they waited in a group for Sam and the colonel to approach as if wary of their visitors. Sam got the impression that they probably didn't get all that many being that they were so far from the gate. As they drew nearer to the group of villagers, Sam noticed that the colonel's grip on his weapon changed. It was no longer inconsequential, though it wasn't readied as if he were prepared for action. She found she had a more formal relationship with her weapon than she'd had in the last couple of weeks, as well.

Sam, though she'd been leading the way, hung back a step and deferred to him as they stepped up to the group of villagers. She didn't mind being a half a step behind him as she stood off his left shoulder waiting to hear what he'd say, because it was apparent the villagers were waiting for them to speak.

"Hi, folks." The colonel rocked back on his heels as he slipped his sunglasses off, allowing the woman who was at the center of the pack to peer into his eyes.

She looked him up and down slowly and then turned her eyes to Sam and did the same. "You must have traveled from very far," she finally decided.

A little boy was staring at the colonel with wide eyes and an enamored look on his face. Sam couldn't help but smile in response. "We came through the stargate. The giant stone ring? Do you know it?" She figured, in lieu of Daniel, she'd be the one to broach the subject.

The woman shook her head. "Stargate? You are not from one of the other villages? I suppose you are not. We have been to every village we know of. We are all that remain."

Sam felt her blood run cold. These were the last of the people on the planet? The people in this village? There couldn't have been more than... well, she wasn't sure. She saw maybe forty or fifty people through her binoculars but the village looked like it was set up for more. Maybe a couple of hundred.

"You have travelled a great distance?" the woman asked again.

"It took us a couple of weeks to walk here," the colonel said.

"Weeks?" She shook her head with a confused look on her face.

"Days?" Sam asked.

The woman nodded.

Sam thought back over their long walk. Sixteen days since they were stranded. "Fifteen days of walking."

"You should come in and rest, you must be weary," she said.

"We're okay," the colonel said. "But we'll come. It's good to see faces after all this time."

"You thought you were alone," the woman surmised.

"Yes," Sam said.

She thought her worry must have sounded in her voice because the woman wore a soft, sympathetic look. "You are not alone. Come, sit down, have some water and bread and tell us of your journey."

Sam and the colonel sat down with the woman, a man, a teenage girl who kept looking at Sam like she was the most interesting thing the girl had ever seen, and the boy who was looking at the colonel like a live action hero, at a large round table near a well. They learned that they were sitting with a family. The mother was Arnaq and the father Asuilaak. The daughter, Innugati, and the son, Uki. Several other villagers stood around or sat on the ground nearby to hear the story of their travels recounted.

Sam, for her part, listened, mostly, as the colonel told the tale. She happily feasted on some crusty bread that was delicious after a couple weeks of nothing but meat and leafy greens. It didn't hurt that watching the colonel pop bite after bite of the bread into his mouth was a bit intoxicating, too. She'd have thought that being back in amongst civilization, such as it was, would have reigned in whatever it was that was causing her inappropriate thoughts about him, but apparently that wasn't the case. Damn it.

She studied the people that were gathered around the table and those that were standing and seated on the ground. Some of them looked visibly tired and she knew that could be radiation sickness as much as generalized fatigue from lifestyle. She didn't notice any lesions on their exposed skin, and that was odd, she thought.

As the colonel neared the end of the recounting of his story, another man joined the crowd. He wore a scowl, but he said nothing. He gave Sam a once over that gave her the heebie-jeebies and she found herself sliding infinitesimally closer to the colonel who gave her a bit of a look but turned his upper body towards her a little, opening his body language, and inviting her into his space. The way he did that, without question or hesitation, unfurled something inside her. She leaned in just a little bit more.

Arnaq spared a look between Sam and the colonel and then between Sam and the new man and offered to show them to the hut they could use as their own while they were in the village. Sam exchanged a glance with the colonel. One hut. Strategically speaking, it wasn't a bad idea. They both shrugged and shared a small half smile.

As arrangements were made for a hut, a hunting party was being put together. The man who gave Sam the once over appeared to be the leader. Arnaq's husband, Asuilaak, also joined the party. Little Uki stuck close to his father's side but was forcefully told he must stay behind. He looked nonetoohappy with that development, but he didn't look surprised either.

"I am afraid the village is at near capacity," Arnaq said as she led them to a very small hut near the edge of the village. "This is the best we can offer you."

"We've been sleeping out under the stars since we've been stranded here," the colonel reminded her, "this is a welcome reprieve. Thanks."

Arnaq stopped at the door to the hut and allowed Sam the privilege of pushing the door open. She did and stepped inside. She felt the colonel close at her back as she surveyed their, hopefully, temporary home. "Oh," she said. Taking it in.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"Cozy," Jack commented. It was a small, one room dwelling. There was a bed-like structure, a table with two chairs, another taller table that looked like it functioned like a kitchen counter, a fireplace, and very little unused floor space.

The teenage girl who seemed to have taken a shine to Carter came in carrying a pile of soft looking blankets. She hardly took her eyes off Carter's no-longer-quite-shining blonde hair as she set the blankets down on the, thankfully, wider than twin sized bed. Because Jack was pretty sure there wasn't enough room anywhere on the floor in this joint to stretch out a sleeping bag. Which meant someone was sleeping in a chair, they were taking turns sleeping, or they were... sleeping together.

He exchanged a glance with the Captain and her look skittered away quickly. She'd apparently come to the same realization he had and she wasn't very comfortable with it, either, though for what reasons he couldn't quite say. His reasons had more to do with the fact that he'd been noticing her a little too closely since they'd been stranded on this rock and they were going to be going home if he had anything to say about it. So getting close to her was something he didn't plan to be doing.

The young boy, Uki, came barreling into the room. His mother chastised him, but Jack waved her off and smiled at the boy. Jack liked him immediately upon meeting him. He liked the way the boy looked at him. He reminded him a little of Skaara, maybe a little because of that, of Charlie – the way all young boys reminded Jack a little of his son.

Arnaq stepped into the hut behind the Jack, Sam, Innugati and Uki. "I know you have settling in to do, but you will join us for dinner tonight, yes? There is no food here for you to eat."

Carter looked at Jack sharply, apparently coming quickly to the realization that that were entirely dependent upon these people. He smoothly looked over at Arnaq. "Yes, thank you."

"Come at sundown. We'll leave you now to get settled. Everything you need should be here now, there are buckets for the well, flintrocks for the fireplace. If you need anything at all, tell me tonight."

Jack figured their standards of living were probably a lot lower than he was used to, but he thanked her anyway and she collected her children and then, she was gone.

"I'll go get water from the well," Sam said quietly, moving to pick up the buckets from their place by the door.

Jack recognized a need to collect herself and so he let her go with a, "Sure."

He turned to the fireplace. There was a stack of word next to the wall and a box which, when he opened it, was full of kindling. He built a fire and, using the flintrocks, started it handily. Soon enough the hut was well lit and warming nicely. With the fire going he noticed candles on the high table that he thought was the kitchen counter. He brought them over to the table figuring they might use them later on when they came back after dinner.

She returned a few minutes later ladened down with two buckets of water. He met her at the door and took one off her. "Thanks," she said.

"Yeah."

They both hefted the buckets up onto the counter.

"Wow," she said. "It's... warm... in here."

"Yeah," he said, a little self consciously.

She plucked at the neck of her shirt. "Too bad we need the fire for the light."

"Well, and for cooking, if we were cooking. It's how we'd light the candles."

"So... what do we do now?"

"Wait for the sun to go down, I guess."

"Want to explore the village?"

"Sure," he said with a shrug.

They followed the same path back to the center of the village. It took them all of five minutes to scout out the well, the communal tables, the stalls where it looked like merchants once set up to sell their wares but now children played... It was clear that this had once been a more vibrant, bustling village than the one that they'd happened upon.

"What do you think happened to these people?" Jack asked.

Carter shrugged. "The sun," she said simply. "What else?"

They wandered outwards from the village center and found more of the huts. Most looked condemned and even some of those had signs of life within. "I see what they mean about living space," Carter said, trailing her fingers along the exterior wall of one such hut.

They wandered in a giant circle until they ended up back at their hut just in time to wash up before heading to Arnaq's for dinner.

"We need to see about providing for ourselves," Jack said as they walked the short distance to Arnaq's. "We can't be reliant on others for every meal of every day."

"We've done fine so far, sir."

"There are going to be rules in the village, a hierarchy. We need to figure out whose toes not to step on."

"Since when are you worried about not stepping on any toes?"

He raised an eyebrow at her and did everything he could not to smile at her boldness.

"Sir," she tacked on.

He couldn't check the smile then.

She smiled, too.

"It didn't escape my notice that there was a guy out there today who looked at you wrong, Captain," he said in a tone of voice he hoped she'd find both supportive and comforting. "I'll do what I can to protect you from that." Even if meant giving the villagers the impression that there was more going on between him and his Captain than there really was. What they didn't know wouldn't hurt them.

"I'd like to think I don't need protection," she said in a bristly tone of voice. But she was the one who'd leaned into him and they both knew it.

They arrived at Arnaq's hut which effectively ended the conversation. Jack raised his hand and knocked on the door, even though he wasn't sure if that was how one announced one's arrival on this particular planet.

Innugati pulled the door open and beckoned them inside. The hut was warm but light and inviting. It was bigger than the one that Jack and Sam were sharing and the table was much larger. Then again, it had to regularly seat four. On this night it would be seating five in the absence of Asuilaak who was still out hunting.

"Come in, and sit down," Arnaq invited.

It was then that the smell of real and actual food hit Jack upside the face and his stomach growled audibly. Carter looked over at him sharply and then a grin spread across her face. Jack felt chagrinned. "Sorry, guess it's been a while since the last proper meal."

"I shudder to think what you have been surviving on," Arnaq agreed.

"It wasn't _so_ bad," Carter was quick to point out. "We had fish, and at the end, meat. And a plant we discovered we could eat." She sat down in the chair that Innugati indicated. Jack noticed it was the chair right next to the teenage girl. He grinned.

Of course, that put him right next to Uki. Apparently they each had their own little fan club. Jack sat and watched as Arnaq brought a steaming bowl of vegetables to the table. He couldn't really identify any of them, but they looked sort of like a collection of root vegetables to him. He didn't care. They looked like something other than meat and he was thrilled. Next came a loaf of bread that had him positively salivating. And finally, a platter of roasted beast of some kind that did smell pretty good. Clearly she had access to herbs that he Carter hadn't had out in the field.

As they passed each dish around the table and made their plates, Arnaq explained that her husband was frequently off on hunting trips and that it was nice to have the company of Jack and Carter for a change. Especially as it kept Uki from being sullen about being left behind.

"I am old enough to go," Uki said.

"You are not," his mother said in a tone of voice that suggested they'd had the same argument many times over.

"I can string the bow on my own and shoot a target from one hundred and fifty paces. Tulimak says-"

"I do not care what _Tulimak_ says," Arnaq said, spitting the man's name.

Jack, for his part, shoveled a bite of delicious vegetable into his mouth and tried to ignore the tense conversation between mother and son. He caught Carter's eye and saw her take her own uncomfortable bite of bread. She did, however, look fascinated by the exchange.

Uki huffed but dropped the subject. Wisely, Jack thought. He turned his gaze to Innugati. He'd yet to hear her speak, but she kept her rapt attention on Carter. He wondered if the girl was mute or just shy. She looked to be in her late teens, but with the lives these people led, who knew if he was correct or not in that assumption. He could understand, though, how a girl that age might be be taken with Carter immediately. She looked so different, first of all, than these people did. And she carried herself so differently than the women of the village did. She was definitely a foreign thing.

"My child," Arnaq said dismissively of the argument, "he thinks he is grown."

Carter and Jack chuckled obediently.

"Now, about the two of you. Travelers from a distant land. We have not had visitors for some time. It has been at least... a generation."

"Since anyone has come through the stargate?" Sam asked.

"Or by ship," Arnaq said with a nod. "The gods came by airship."

Jack exchanged a glance with Carter. "But it's been a generation since they've been here?"

"There has been no need for them to come back since the planet's resources have been depleted. They used to mine here."

"Naquadah," Sam said.

"No," Arnaq said. "Gold and other metals."

"Well, they had to have gotten it from somewhere," Jack said.

Innugati, at that moment, reached out and fingered a lock of Carter's hair. She turned her head, feeling the ruffle of her hair and Innugati snatched her hand back. Jack smiled.

"That reminds me!" Arnaq said. "Do not leave without taking the stack of things by the door. It is not much, but there are some things that might help you settle in a little better. One of which is soap."

"Oh, thank you," Carter said. Of course, they had soap, but it wasn't going to last forever. The little bars were already on their last legs.

"There is a sleeping dress for you, Sam. It was Innugati's, it should fit you well."

Jack eyed the slender girl. She was about Sam's height and build, he supposed, possibly a little slighter. But Arnaq was a shorter, rounder woman. Her cast offs certainly wouldn't have done Carter any favors.

"Thank you," Carter said again. She opened her mouth, likely to object to taking the clothing but closed her mouth again when Jack shook his head minutely. They'd take what they were given, graciously. Who knew what the politics of this place were going to be. And so far this family had been incredibly nice. Best not to ruffle any feathers.

Over the rest of dinner they chatted about the village and the people. Arnaq reveals that there were once many villages on the planet but now there are few and they were separated by great distances. The ones within many days walk, even, are abandoned. All the people who were close enough to come, have come to this village.

The villagers were sick and dying. Jack and Carter exchanged glances when Arnaq revealed that bit of information. Of course they were – the solar radiation on the planet was deadly. But why only now were the people becoming sick? Why weren't the people aware that the sun was deadly? Jack saw Sam open her mouth to ask those very questions but again he shook his head. He wanted to know more about these people before he went making waves. If they _didn't_ know about the sun, he wanted to know _why_.

When dinner was over, Jack sat back in his chair and rubbed his stomach in appreciation. "Arnaq, that meal was excellent. Thank you for offering to feed us."

"It was my pleasure," she said with a happy smile.

"We really can't thank you enough for your hospitality," Carter agreed.

"It is nice to have new faces in the village. You are most welcome here."

Jack didn't have the heart to tell her that they were leaving as soon as someone came for them, especially considering the way Uki was looking at him. "Thanks, again."

Arnaq just smiled.

"We should probably be getting back. Let you have your evening," Jack said.

"I'm sure you have some settling in to do."

Jack didn't know what settling in there was to do, really. They could unpack their packs, he supposed. But that wouldn't exactly take long. But there wasn't much more to do now that dinner was had. Jack and Carter said their goodnights, collected the stack of items by the door and then made their way in the moonlight to their hut.

They'd left the fire burning, but it had burned down considerably in their absence so the glow was dim. "I'll just build that back up," Jack said.

"Light the candles?" Sam asked him passing them his way.

"Sure."

He lit six and passed them back to her one at a time and she set them around the small room. It didn't take him long and he had the fire built back up, too. And between that and the candles the room was sufficiently lit, for nighttime, anyway. They were probably going to need more candles, though, if the look of Carter's face was any indication.

"I'm going to lay out the sleeping bags."

"Okay, Captain." He rolled his eyes at himself and was grateful she wouldn't be able to see it in the low light. He'd needed the frank reminder of her rank when she'd called attention to their sleeping arrangements. He was just a little too comfortable with the idea of sharing a bed with her.

She took her time laying out the bedrolls side by side with as much space between them as the bed would allow. Which wasn't much he noticed, even though he was trying not to pay too much attention to her work.

When she was done she stood in the middle of the room shifting her weight from one foot to the other. "I'd like to freshen up... a little."

"Okay," he said offhandedly.

She just stood there.

He stared into the fire.

She stood there some more.

He stared into the- "Oh." She wanted him to leave so she could... "Sure. I'll just... go out there."

She smiled. "Thank you, sir."

He stepped outside into the cool night air with a smile on his face. For two weeks freshening up had meant going down to the river and taking a full on bath and hoping the other one respected your privacy. Now it meant getting the hut to yourself for a little while. Oh how things had changed.

He killed seven, maybe eight minutes staring up at the stars when she finally came to the door, pulled it open and stood there, backlit by firelight, dressed in Innugati's sleeping dress. She looked... otherworldly, was the only way to put it. His breath caught and he had to force himself to resume breathing. "I'm done," she said, unnecessarily. "You can come back in." She stepped back and he noted she was barefooted. He'd never seen her barefooted before and it was mesmerizing.

"Do you need me to step out while you..." She offered.

He looked back down at her bare feet and shook his head. "No. You can stay." He wouldn't do any freshening up tonight that would embarrass either one of them.

He pulled a clean t-shirt out of his pack and moved to strip his dirty one over his head. She abruptly turned her back. He smiled. She took a seat at the table facing the fire and he used some of the water she fetched earlier and the end of his Air Force issue soap to wash up. He dried off with his dirty t-shirt and a shrug. He put the clean-shirt on and stripped his trousers off. After a couple of weeks of sleeping in uniform he was looking forward to sleeping in his shorts, he had to say, but...

He looked over his shoulder at Carter. He should probably sleep in uniform next to her. Only... she wasn't sleeping in uniform. She didn't seem to have any problem sleeping in something else when it was offered. Maybe she wouldn't have any problem with him doing the same. Maybe he should ask her. What was it they said? Better to ask for forgiveness than permission? He grinned and stowed his trousers in his pack.

"C'mon, Carter, you're next to the wall."

She came willingly, blowing out the candles along the way, and didn't object to her placement in the bed. She had to have known it was coming, that he'd place himself on the outside of the bed, closer to the door, between her and potential danger. If she objected to his sleeping attire she didn't comment on that either. Didn't react to it at all, as a matter of fact. Didn't even give him a once over, he was disappointed to note.

She crawled into the bed, he watched her shapely rear as she made her way across the bed and turned and snuggled down into her sleeping bag. He climbed into his and promptly noticed that they were touching all along one side of their bodies.

"Sorry, sir," she said and wriggled herself away from him a little. But as soon as she did, the dip in the bed had her sliding back towards him.

They maneuvered themselves this way and that for several minutes trying to avoid touching one another in the bed before finally Jack gave up and pulled his arm out from between them and stretched it out over her head. The top of her head touched his arm but she didn't seem quite as tetchy about that.

"Uki sure does seem to like you," she said into the quiet of the room.

"No more than Innugati likes you," he countered.

She giggled. He thought about reminding her about the rule but then she stopped.

"Uki is about Charlie's age." Because Charlie will always be the age he was when he died. Jack wasn't sure why he said it. He never talked about Charlie. He could feel Carter look at him more than he could see her even with the light of the fire at the other end of the little room. "Boys his age always make me think a little."

"How could they not?"

He felt the ghost of her hand against his chest so light he could have imagined it, and then it was gone. "Charlie always wanted to do things he wasn't quite old enough to do, too. He used to argue with Sara the same way Uki was arguing with Arnaq. It was very... familiar."

"I don't remember arguments with my mom," Carter confessed. "I wish I did. I wish I remembered all the little details."

There were things about her sometimes that made him want to wrap her up in a hug. Sometimes he did. Sometimes he didn't – this was one of the times he didn't, because being horizontal and wrapping her up in a hug was too dangerous.

He needed to get them back on solid emotional ground, which meant _off_ their broken families. "Tomorrow we need to start figuring out what's going on with these people. Why don't they know why they're sick?"

"I want to be able to tell them. To help them."

"Telling them won't necessarily help them."

"We could end up dying here too," she said, morbidly.

"That's not going to happen.

"How do you know?"

"Because, after everything I've been through in my life, Carter, this just isn't how I go out."

"I find that oddly comforting."

"Good." He shifted, jostling her body in the bed, just for kicks. "Now, go to sleep. That's an order."

"Yes, sir," she said, but he could hear the smile in her voice.

He laid there with his eyes open for a long time, listening to the sound of her deep, even breaths as she followed his order.


	6. Chapter 6

**Day 19**

Sam came awake slowly the next morning, the same as she had been while they were travelling. She found a wide space between her and the apparently still slumbering colonel and she wondered, immediately, just what they'd been playing at the night before with all the touching. She blushed even though there was no one to catch her in her thoughts. She didn't want to wake him by getting up out of bed, but the issue of a bathroom was becoming pressing – namely, they didn't have one and was she expected to use the outhouse in the center of the village every time she wanted to go?

At that moment, he stretched, and yawned. She watched him awaken; though she'd laid next to him in tents before, this seemed more far more intimate. But, of course it was. She was in a bed with him, out of uniform. There was a definite break from military protocol happening.

"Good morning," she said, softly.

"Hmm," he rumbled. "Morning."

His voice flowed through her like hot coffee. She found herself torn between wanting to stay in bed with him longer just for the experience of it and the necessity of getting up. Soon, though, necessity won out. "I need to get up," she said.

"Huh?" He asked tiredly.

"I need to get out of bed," she said, amused.

"Oh, okay." It took him a minute and she found his discombobulation endearing because in the field he was on point all the time, even first thing in the morning, but put the man in a bed, and apparently all bets were off. Eventually, though, he swung his legs over the edge of the bed and sat up, scrubbing his hands over his face.

She used his shoulder to steady herself as she climbed out of the bed. "I need to get dressed," she said, making her way to her pack, hoping she wouldn't have to ask him for privacy.

"I'll just..." He got up and crossed to the other side of the hut, presenting her with his back, and began fiddling with the low fire.

She figured that was good enough, and pulled her uniform trousers on underneath the sleeping dress. Whipping the thing off and standing behind him entirely topless was a bit of a different experience, but she squelched down the inappropriate thoughts as she wrangled herself into her sports bra and then threaded her arms into a t-shirt. When she was all tucked in and all that was left was her boots she gave him the all-clear.

He dressed too, then, pulling on his uniform trousers and tucking in the shirt he slept in with a sheepish grin. "What?" He asked when she just shook her head at him with a wry smile.

They each sat in a chair at a table to put on their socks and boots. It felt awfully cozy to be getting ready to face the day with him such as they were in their little fire-lit hut. But still, there was the bathroom problem.

"If I don't start the walk to the privy now, I'm going to be in trouble," she said.

"Yeah, it is kind of inconvenient having to walking all the way into the center of the village to use the facilities. We need to set up some kind of a chamber-pot situation, I think."

She made a face.

"Well, you got any other suggestions?"

There wasn't a chance in hell she was peeing in a pot in a room with him in it. "I'll think on it when I _don't_ desperately have to pee. Okay?"

He grinned at her. "Okay. But you have to admit, the outhouse is better than what we have been doing for two weeks..."

She thought about the general aesthetics of the outhouse and pulled another face. She wasn't a hundred percent sure that was true.

They made their way towards the village. Sam hoped they had something resembling coffee or tea. And something possibly breakfast-like. Arnaq hadn't mentioned how the colonel and Sam might come by future meals, but Sam didn't think that they'd be left to go hungry until they could lay in their own supplies.

After they both availed themselves of the facilities, they made their way to the same area they'd sat at the afternoon before when they'd told the tale of their long trip to the village. There were Arnaq and Innugati as well as a small collection of other villagers sitting around in what appeared to be a coffee klatch.

"Sam, Jack! Sit down, join us. Have something warm to drink, she indicated a pot in the center of the table. Innugati will run and get you some cups," she nudged the girl who got up and literally ran off towards their hut. "You have not eaten, have you? Uki!" she called. The boy appeared a moment later from somewhere out of sight but off in the direction of one of the merchant stalls where the children played. "Bring some bannock for Jack and Sam."

Sam recognized the food as the bread they'd had with dinner the night before and was pleased it would be breakfast as well. Sam and the colonel slipped onto the bench at the table side-by-side and joined the villagers. Innugati appeared moments later with cups for each of them and poured them both cups of dark liquid.

The colonel sniffed at it and then took a sip. When he didn't make a face, Sam followed suit. It had a surprisingly sweet flavor and she wondered if they sweetened it or if it brewed that way. A minute or two later, a loaf of bannock appeared on the table in front of them. The colonel wasted no time in tearing into it and handing her a hunk of the flavorful bread. She accepted it gratefully as her stomach growled with hunger.

As they sat there, Sam noticed that the several women sitting around the table were all quite fatigued and a couple even had lesions on their faces – a clear sign that the sun had become too much for them and that they would soon succumb to the radiation poisoning.

"I'm sorry to ask, but Arnaq, you mentioned last night that your villagers are sick and dying. How many of you are sick?"

"We all are, to some degree," Arnaq said sadly.

"But it wasn't always this way?" Sam queried. "What changed?"

"There was once a machine," Arnaq said, "and while it ran the Goa'uld came. And also while the Goa'uld came we did not get sick. Some of us believe it was the machine that kept us healthy. But others of us believe that if the machine runs we will again be enslaved by the Goa'uld. So it is fortuitous that it no longer operates."

Sam exchanged a glance with the colonel. A device that kept them from getting sick from the sun? They'd run into something like that once before. But lore that the machine was what kept them enslaved by the Goa'uld? That wasn't a good thing. And a helluva thing to be up against.

"Tulimak and his faction believe that the Goa'uld could come back at any time if we fix the machine. But there are those of us who believe that the machine is our only hope for survival. But it is beyond our comprehension to fix it," Arnaq said sadly.

"Can I see it?" Sam asked.

"I will gladly show it to you," Arnaq said. "Do you think you know of it? Could you fix it?"

"I don't know," Sam said honestly. "I don't even know if it does what you think it does, but it wouldn't hurt to look at it, would it?"

"That depends on whether or not you are willing to make enemies within the village. There are some who will not like you tampering with the machine."

"Well, I'm not tampering with it... yet. I just want to see it."

"Come along, then," Arnaq said, pushing herself up from the table. Sam and the colonel followed. They walked out farther than the two of them had ventured on their own the evening before, all the way to the outskirts of the village, to a hut without a roof. Which, Sam figured, made sense, if it was a device similar to the one that they'd encountered on Jonas' planet. It would need access to the skies. And, likely, a counterpart.

"Is there a second one?" Sam asked.

Arnaq nodded. "Yes. On the other side of the village."

Sam nodded thoughtfully. "I suspected."

"You have seen something like this before?"

"Yes."

"So you know how it operates?"

"Well, I think I might," Sam hedged, hoping not to get anyone's hopes up. And just because she might know how it worked didn't at mean she could fix it.

"So it's like the one on-"

"Yes, sir," she said quickly, stopping him from saying Jonas' name before she had to hear it spoken aloud.

She squatted down and removed the cover plate from the base of the device. She barely contained a gasp. The crystals inside had clearly been smashed. She looked at Arnaq who was looking at her with wide, hopeful eyes and then at the colonel who was looking at her in that regular sort of bored way he had when she was fiddling with technology. She didn't want to get in the middle of these people's political battles but it was clear to her that the machine had been sabotaged. But if she told that to Arnaq, what would she be starting between Arnaq's half of the village and Tulimak's half?

She opted for diplomacy. "The crystals that power and run the device need to be replaced. Without them, there's nothing that can be done."

Arnaq looked thoughtful. "There are other villages within a few days walk. They have similar machines. Could you use the... crystals... from those machines to fix this one?"

More crystals in other villages within walking distance? Sam's eyes snapped to the colonel's. That might mean that there were enough crystals on the planet to fix the DHD. Which meant they might be able to get home. He looked perked up too, which meant he was clearly thinking the same thing.

"I think it's possible that I could use crystals from other villages to fix your device, yes. If that's what you and your people want. It would stop you from getting sick," Sam said. "We've seen your sickness before and it is caused by the solar radiation."

"You will not convince everyone of this. And you will not convince everyone fixing the machine is the best course of action. But I believe it to be so. I will discuss it with my husband when he returns. If he agrees then, we will move forward, yes?"

Sam looked over at the colonel.

"Sure," he said with a shrug. "As long as Carter here thinks she can do it, I don't see any reason not to."

"It will make you unpopular."

"Wouldn't be the first time," he said.

And besides, Sam thought, with any sort of luck, they'd soon be going home anyway. _After_ they saved some lives.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Jack poured a third bucket of water into the tub he had found leaned up against the back of the hut. It was a warm day and Sam was still off with Arnaq and Innugati so he was going to take the opportunity to have a bit of a bath and a shave in the relative privacy of the space out behind his home-sweet-hut. He stripped down to his trousers, even leaving his boots and socks in a pile next to the wall of the hut. The feeling of the cool grass between his toes was nice and reminiscent of his childhood.

He laid the towel-like scrap of fabric Arnaq had given him on the ground next to the tub and knelt down next to it, wincing at the sharp pain in his knees. He grabbed the bar of homemade soap that was floating in the water and lathered up his hands and then bent over the tub and scooped up some water and brought the sudsy stuff up to his face and scrubbed. It felt like heaven getting the grit off his skin.

He grabbed what passed for a washcloth in these parts and lathered it up. He got his arms, underarms, chest and stomach and then rinsed the cloth in the water before rinsing himself off as well. The waistband of his trousers got wet in the process, but he didn't mind too much. He wasn't going for a full on bath at the moment anyway.

He thought about rigging up a screen in the hut so that he and Carter could have some privacy inside for bathroom business. He saw the way she'd made a face that morning when he'd suggested a chamberpot, but seriously, was she going to use the village outhouse every time she had to go? And she was going to want to bathe and asking her to bathe outside wasn't right or making him leave everytime she needed a bath was going to get... inconvenient. He'd build her something. Or find her something. Surely they weren't the first people to have thought of this? Maybe there was something in one of the abandoned huts?

He leaned over and dunked his head in the water and wet his hair. He used the bar of soap to lather his hair up really good and washed it well. It was getting a bit long and thought about asking Carter to use the scissors in one of their field kits to cut it.

She probably wouldn't mind, right? It wouldn't be strange to ask her to do something like that. Not too... personal? That made him think about going to bed with her the night before and then waking up with her that morning. He had noticed that she'd been plenty far from him when he'd awoken. Had something happened during the night or had she simply migrated away from him? And, if so, then why had they started the night so close together?

He rinsed his hair and reached for the towel. He toweled his hair dry then stood up spinning around towards his clothing as he uncovered his head. Only to see Uki standing there wearing his hat and sunglasses, standing with his arms folded, the same way Jack knew he stood much of the time because he generally had a gun resting right under them. He couldn't help but grin at the boy who was pretending to be him.

"Hey kid. What's up?"

Uki didn't look shaken at all to be caught playing in Jack's things and Jack couldn't help but like the moxy. "Mother said to tell you dinner will be at sundown. And that Sam will likely spend the rest of the day there with her and Innugati. They are doing women's things." Uki looked bored even behind the sunglasses.

Jack reached for the clean t-shirt he'd brought out with him.

"Well, I've got a mission. You want to help me out?"

"Yes!" The boy exclaimed quickly.

"I need something to separate part of the hut off, so that we can have a bathing area."

"You need privacy from your wife to bathe?" Uki asked skeptically.

Jack raised an eyebrow. He wasn't sure if he should correct the boy about his and Carter's marital status or not.

"Carter might like some privacy."

"All right," the boy said, clearly not certain about Jack's plan.

"Do you think something like this might be in one of the abandoned huts.

"Yes," Uki said, with a sigh. "Follow me."

Jack didn't quite know what Uki's objection to the want of a screen was when such a beast existed, but he wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Instead, he followed the kid through the village to an abandoned hut and there he found exactly what he was looking for. A hide screen on a frame that he could use to block off a small area of the hut just large enough to use for baths or for a chamber pot as needed.

Carter was going to be thrilled.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Sam followed the colonel into their little hut after dinner that night. He once again built the fire back up and she passed him one candle after another until they were once again all lit and she scattered them around the hut.

"What's that?" She asked him when the place was lit enough to throw a large square of animal hide that was free standing into stark relief.

"That," he said, standing up and clapping his hands, grinning, "is the solution to your outhouse problem."

"Really?" She asked skeptically.

"Really. Behind it, right now, is a chamber pot. But, it can double as a bathing room. I found a tub out back."

"Really?" She said, slowly, more interested. More in the tub than the chamber pot solution. She still wasn't sure about peeing with him in the room.

"I know you're not thrilled about the whole communal living/bathroom thing, but I figured this was a nice compromise."

She softened a little, because he had done a really nice thing. For her. "It is. Thank you, sir."

He smiled at her. Her stomach flip flopped a little.

"And now you've got a private place to change."

"I do."

The place really wasn't big enough for such a concession, but it really was sweet of him. And she did appreciate what he had done.

"There's something I need to talk to you about, before we go to bed," she said. And boy, if that didn't sound strange to her ears.

"Okay, Captain." It must have sounded strange to his, too, if he felt the need to call her by her rank.

"The crystals in the device today... the looked like they had been destroyed."

"So, the thing didn't just up and stop working?"

"No, sir."

"You think..."

"Tulimak or one of his people, maybe? If they were serious about believing that the device is what kept them enslaved by the Goa'uld, perhaps they would have sabotaged it."

"And you didn't want to say that to Arnaq today..."

"On the chance that it would deteriorate relations between their groups."

The colonel nodded. "Okay, here's what we're going to do. We're going to let Arnaq talk to her husband. If they say yes to fixing the device we fix the device. Either way, we're asking for directions to the nearest village so we can get crystals to fix the DHD. Because we're out of here either way. It's a two week walk back to the gate and we're not going to stay here long enough to die. You got that, Captain?"

"Yes, sir."


	7. Chapter 7

_**Author's Note: Just a quick note to say, yes, this story is back. I'll be posting chapters as I write them, so I don't know how long it will be between updates, though I'll try to be quick about it. Sorry for abandoning this story for a while (I thought it was going to be a forever-thing, but alas, here I am). And thanks for being willing to continue giving it a go!**_

* * *

 **Day 20**

Tulimak watched as the great beasts grazed in the distance. Their hunting party would need to take down two at least, preferably three, to feed the village until the next trip out.

He looked to his right. Many lengths of wheat stalks away sat his most bitter rival and the man who caused him the most grief in the village, Asuilaak. Asuilaak and his wife, Arnaq, were meddlesome. They had drawn together a large number of the villagers who believed contrary to Tulimak and the rest that Goa'uld could come back at any time if the devices that cast the glow over the village were made to work again.

And if the villagers grew sicker and sicker it was merely coincidental. Tulimak could not, did not, believe that such a machine could render them healthy or ill. It was the Goa'uld who controlled their health. If they were ill now it was because their gods had left them and this was their fate. And so it was. They were still better for it, to be without their oppressors.

But Tulimak was convinced that making the machine work again would be a call to the Goa'uld and that they would return to enslave the villagers once more. And he was not alone in that conviction. He had the support of at least half the other villagers as well.

Asuilaak and his wife were gaining ground with the opposition, though. And now, the newcomers. Tulimak did not know what to make of them. They came through the ring of the gods. Did that mean they had the ability to summon them? Did that mean the gods were coming? Was it only a matter of time?

And Arnaq had befriended these they did not know. Where Arnaq went, so did Asuilaak. And Asuilaak was affable and able to bring Tulimak's supporters over his way of thinking. If it continued, soon, Tulimak would be outnumbered and, perhaps, they would discover that he had sabotaged the machines and figure out how to make them operate again. And then the Goa'uld would surely come. What of the villagers then?

No. He could not let that be.

In the distance, the great beasts began to move. Asuilaak and the other hunters crept out of their hiding places, identified two animals who had separated themselves from the herd, and began to stalk their prey. Tulimak hung back and nocked an arrow in his bow. As the men approached the beasts, they let their arrows and spears fly towards the animals they had marked for death.

Tulimak took aim and let his arrow fly, too. Asuilaak made a surprised, painful sound as the arrow entered his back and then fell to his knees. Tulimak wondered for a moment, if he'd missed his mark and then, Asuilaak fell forward onto his face and he knew that his aim had been true. Tulimak had a few moments alone with what he had done as the other men were in front of the scene dealing with the animals, but in a moment, he would have to plead an accident.

He approached Asuilaak's body and crouched down. He affixed his face into one of concern and, he hoped, appropriate horror. He reached out and put a hand on the shoulder that wasn't impaled by his own arrow just in time for one of the other men to turn around and call out.

 **Day 21**

Sam walked into the hut that housed the device and was assaulted by the powerful smell of death. She recoiled and lifted her hand to her nose reflexively as she scanned the room for the culprit. Laid out at the base of the device was the butchered carcass of one of the small animals she and the colonel had begun hunting in the last days of their hike. It was easily over a day old by the smell it was giving off and was clearly meant as a message to Sam.

She'd been told that she'd be unpopular for her desire and ability to tinker with the device but she hadn't thought that any of the villagers would go so far as to take such a disgusting tactic of dissuading her from her work.

She looked around for something she could use to clean up the mess but found nothing useful in the hut. Ideally, she'd keep this development to herself. But, she resigned herself to having to tell someone else about the situation by way of having to ask for some kind of cloth or sack in which to wrap the small body up and cart it off.

If she told the colonel he'd definitely see it as the message it was intended to be and he'd never let her go anywhere in the village without him. Not that she thought for a moment he didn't see her as capable of handling herself, but he had a way about him of taking things onto his own shoulders. And she didn't want to be just something else he needed to worry about.

She ventured out of the hut and back towards the center of the village. As she approached she saw a large crowd of people gathered and, while the center of the village had typically been pretty busy, this seemed special, somehow.

As she drew closer she could hear a woman sobbing. She was instantly set on edge at the sound of the woman's cries. It was the sound of a woman completely gutted. Sam found the colonel's hat in the crowd and shouldered her way through the people until she was at his side. It was there she noticed that the sobbing woman was Arnaq.

"What happened?" Sam asked, tipping her head up so her mouth was next to the colonel's ear.

"Asuilaak was killed on the hunting trip," he answered quietly, his voice barely above a whisper.

"Should we do something?" Sam gestured helplessly at the woman who was on her knees in the dirt. Innugati was crouched next to her mother, a hand around her shoulders and Uki was a couple of feet away, tears streaming down his face.

"Like what, Carter?"

"Something for her..."

"There's nothing we can do or say to make this better for her."

Sam knew that, intellectually. She'd never lost a spouse, but she had lost her mother. And she knew that nothing anybody did or said made much difference in the early moments. "What happened?" She asked quietly.

"He was struck by an arrow." The colonel looked her in the eye, "Apparently, it was Tulimak's."

Sam gasped. "Was it an accident?"

"That's the story."

"But you don't believe that?"

"Do you? After learning what you have about the politics of this village?"

"I don't know," Sam demurred. She hated to think the worst about someone she hardly knew, even if he had given her the creeps since the moment she'd met him, and even if he did have a reputation for being trouble. They only had Arnaq's side of the story. Though someone, a follower of Tulimak's most likely, had left the dead animal for her. And a man who would condone such an act wasn't a good guy. But still, she didn't really know what to think.

The colonel shrugged, non-committal, and turned his attention back to the crying Arnaq. He stepped closer to her and reached down. He tucked a hand under her arm and, when she looked up at him through teary eyes, he helped her to her feet. She fell into him, her head against his chest. He wrapped one arm around her and gently steered her away from the crowd and towards her own home.

Inside her hut he helped her to a chair and sent Innugati for a cup of water. When the teen returned he let her tend to her mother. The colonel led Sam back out into the warm sunshine where he leaned against the wall of the hut and gave her a onceover. "So, what are you doing back so early? I thought you were going to spend some time with the device."

She grimaced.

"What?"

"There was a dead animal at the base of the device. It was clear someone had left it, it didn't die there."

He said nothing for a long moment and then he nodded. "Okay. So you're not going back alone."

"Sir—" she started.

"You trying to tell me you don't think that was a message, Carter?"

"Well, no, but…," she took a deep breath and launched in, "I'm perfectly capable of taking—"

"Care of your yourself. I know. And this isn't about whether you can take care of yourself. It has to do with the fact that it's you and me out here with a bunch of people we don't know, some of whom clearly have a beef with you and that device. If anything, Carter, it's about the device. Getting that thing up and running is our ticket out of here, right?"

"Well, it's a byproduct of it, yes," she said, cooling her jets after being reassured that he wasn't trying to protect her unnecessarily. "I mean, we're likely to find crystals at the other locations that could power the gate." A thought struck her just then. "What if there are only enough viable crystals to do one job?"

"Then you teach Arnaq how to install the crystals, then we take them to the gate to power it so we can get home. After that, they can remove the crystals from the DHD and put them in their sun shield."

"I'm not certain that the task would be simple enough for her to accomplish."

"Then let's hope there are enough crystals out there to do both."

 **Day 22**

Jack came awake slowly. His left side was warm and weighted down and there were soft, moist exhalations against his neck that made parts of him tight with anticipation. There was plenty of room in the bed, sure, but she had fallen asleep the night before as they were speaking and she'd been lying close to him on her side. Apparently, she'd never migrated away. No, she'd moved closer. If he focused he could feel her breasts pressed against him. And while that was pleasant in a way he completely expected, he tamped down on the small pleasure and reminded himself that she was his subordinate officer, his responsibility, and off-limits.

He reached over intending to tap her on the shoulder to wake her, but the tap turned into a caress that caused her to arch her body into him. She made a small, discontented noise at the intrusion. "C'mon, Carter. Wakey, wakey."

He felt her come awake by degrees: pressing into him, shifting away minutely, exhaling, clenching her fist against his chest, inhaling. He knew the moment she became fully cognizant of their positions. He could feel the words forming on her lips in the moment before she apologized, "I'm so sorry, sir."

"No harm, no foul," he said, trying to keep his voice even and his tone light as to not betray any of the wholly improper feelings he was having. "But I need to get up."

She rolled away from him the instant he said it, which made it all that much more apparent that she hadn't upon her apology.

He got out of the bed and forced himself not to look back at her. He stepped behind the screen and made use of the pot he'd acquired for their convenience rather than having to run to the community outhouse for every call of nature. Carter had yet to use it while he was in the room, not that he blamed her. It was an odd thing to know the other person could hear you going.

"I'd like to go to one of the closer neighboring villages today to find out about the crystal supply." She'd waited until there was silence to speak.

"Not wasting any time, are you?" He stepped out from behind the screen and leveled his gaze at her.

"Well, we're out of sunscreen and these people have been exposed for who knows how long. I don't think we have time to waste." She bit her lip and looked away from him.

"What?"

"I think you should stay here, with the device."

"Carter—"

"No, hear me out." She waited until it was clear he planned to before she started speaking again, "We have no way of knowing what Tulimak or his people may do to it if we're not watching it. And once they discover I'm gone, they'll likely deduce why. And if they think I'm trying to fix the device, they could permanently damage it."

"Fair point. I think we should also consider putting the devices under twenty-four hour guard."

"That's not a bad idea, sir."

"I'll arrange it while you're gone."

"So it's okay?"

"I want you to take someone with you."

"Sir… we don't know who to trust…"

"Take Innugati. She knows the terrain and the area. And it'll give her something to focus on besides her father's death."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Sam and Innugati were making good time, as far as Sam could tell. They'd reach the neighboring village before dusk, the girl assured her. That would leave plenty of time to harvest crystals and make camp. They could head back first thing the next morning.

Sam tried several times to coax the teen into speaking, but unless speech was necessary, Innugati was as tightlipped as anyone Sam had ever come across. It was clear, though, still, that Innugati thought Sam was pretty amazing. The girl looked at Sam with reverence in her eyes. Enough that it made Sam more than a little uncomfortable. She wanted to reassure the teen that there wasn't anything ungodly special about her besides, possibly, her brain. But Innugati didn't know her well enough, or have the breadth of knowledge really, to know how impressive Sam's intelligence really was.

So the two women traversed the terrain – not unlike that that she and the colonel had crossed in their final days before finding the village – with relative ease if in near silence. A couple of hours after midday they stopped and had some of the food that Arnaq had packed for them. And sure enough, at least two hours before sunset Sam made out the village in the distance.

It didn't take too much longer to reach the outbuildings and the two women began to search for the first of the buildings that held a device. The fourth hut yielded results. Sam practically threw herself at the base of the thing and began prying open the casing.

Inside she found nothing but bits of broken crystal. Her heart sank. Whomever had done this job had done it well. She sighed and rested her weary head against the device.

"Sam?" Innugati asked tentatively.

"They're all broken."

"We will check the other device, no?"

"Yes, we will," she said, picking herself up and dusting off her knees. She hoped for better luck next time.

They crossed the village to an identical roofless hut. Sam once again opened the casing on the device and there, right in the middle, sat one, gloriously unbroken crystal. She felt the band that was tight around her heart loosen just a smidge. For the first time she thought maybe, just maybe, she and the colonel might make it home.

 **Day 23**

Jack had set up a twenty-four hour watch rota for both of the devices. There were enough men and women who believed as Arnaq did that it was an easy enough thing to manage. What he hadn't counted on, though, was having a little shadow for the entirety of his watch.

He couldn't blame Uki for sticking close by, not after having abruptly lost his father. He'd been a young adult when his father had died. And while he'd felt like he was far too young to be losing a parent, and while he felt ill-prepared to live in a world without his father in it, he had, at least, been a self-sufficient adult with the responsibilities prescribed to him by the United States Air Force. Uki, however, was just a kid.

Jack felt something akin to solidarity with the boy. He was about the same age Charlie had been when he died – the age Jack would always associate him with, no matter how old he might be chronologically on any missed birthday. And Jack was still very much a man with a hole inside him where his son used to live. He understood the massive loss that Uki was feeling, even if their losses were different. And there was something downright paternal about the feelings Jack was having for Uki. He'd felt them before, he'd felt them for Skaara. But that was different. A different time, a different kid. Jack knew he needed to draw a line between himself and these kids, but there was a part of him that always had been just… a father.

So, Jack made conversation with the boy. They spoke of games, the other children, girls – girls were universally gross to boys that age, apparently – and eventually Asuilaak. Once he got talking, Uki let his emotions pour out to the point that Jack found himself with his arms full of a crying child and checking tears of his own at the kid's anguish. It was more than a child so young should have to bear. And yet, Jack was grateful for the family that it wasn't one of the children who had been lost. Because while it's hell to lose any loved one, a parent burying a child is an unnatural hell he'd wish on no one.

Once Uki had pulled himself back together, Jack sent him to the well to get some water and wash his face. He didn't come back for a while and when Jack stepped out of the hut to get a fresh perspective, he found the boy wrapped up in a game with some other village children. He smiled to himself and hoped that the good times would outweigh the bad. It seemed like, in this village, there was enough to do to keep busy, that perhaps the child wouldn't have an opportunity to dwell.

Jack's shift coincided with dinnertime and, to his surprise, Arnaq appeared at dusk with a plate laden with roasted meat, root vegetables, and more of the bread that he and Sam liked.

She stood quietly watching him eat for a short while before she finally opened her mouth to speak. "Thank you for spending time with Uki. This is a trying time for a boy and having you here is a distraction he needs."

Jack swallowed and nodded. "He did good today. Only a few bad moments."

"Thanks, in great part, to your influence, I am sure."

Jack ducked his head and took another bite of his dinner. He was glad he was able to be there for the boy, but he couldn't shake the belief that his appearance in the village in the first place was the catalyst for Asuilaak's death. "Anything I can do to help."

Arnaq nodded. "That I do believe." She took the plate back from Jack when he was done. "How much longer do you stand guard?"

"Just past dark I should be relieved. The night shift is going to sleep here. So we won't have to change again until morning."

"Will you sleep well, without your Sam by your side?"

"Oh… we're not… it's not like…" he floundered and then finally settled on, "Yes. I'll be fine."

"I look forward to the safe return of both her and my daughter."

"I feel better knowing she's not out there alone."

"And I feel better knowing Innugati is seeing the world through the eyes of a woman such as Sam. Perhaps we will all benefit from this meeting of our people."

Jack smiled. "That would be nice. Thanks for dinner."

"You are most welcome. I know you have been given food stores of your own, but I would like your company for breakfast tomorrow."

"That, uh, that would be great," Jack said, unsure of how to cook, well, _anything_ , of the unfamiliar foods in a hut without a kitchen.

"Until then, Jack."

"Goodnight, Arnaq."


	8. Chapter 8

**Day 24**

The colonel had been quiet all day. She didn't know what caused it – she'd even been on her side of the bed when they'd woken up that morning, so she didn't think it had anything to do with her. He'd seemed relieved when it was his turn to stand guard at the device and when she offered to go with him he'd turned her down, albeit kindly.

She was helping Arnaq clean up from dinner when the woman said, "You seem troubled, Sam."

She tried to smile and shrug off the concern with an, "I'm fine."

"I do not think that is true."

Sam's shoulders sagged. "There's something wrong with the colonel. I don't know what it is."

Arnaq nodded sagely. "Was there a great loss in his past?"

Shocked, Sam looked sharply at Arnaq. "Yes. Why?"

"I believe he is helping Uki with the loss of his father, but perhaps to his own detriment."

"He's strong enough to be there for Uki, despite his past."

"That I do not doubt. But perhaps he needs more from the people around him?"

Sam was no dummy, she knew that Arnaq was insinuating that Sam needed to provide more emotional support for the colonel. But the woman wasn't entirely aware of the constraints of their relationship. While Sam would love to be there for the colonel, she didn't know him nearly well enough to guess what he might need. And anyway, their relationship didn't make space for that sort of interaction.

"Arnaq," Sam started, "The colonel – Jack – and I… we're not what you think we are."

"Do you think I do not know this?" The woman had a merry glint in her eye. "The perception that you are bonded is safer when in an unknown place, yes?" She waited for Sam to nod. "But you sleep in his bed, do you not?"

Sam thought that was a rather simple way of looking at things. But, then again, who else was going to bridge that gap between contentment and the colonel if not her? "I'm not sure I know how to talk to him about something so personal."

"That is simple. You draw from the well of your own pain and you let him know that he is not alone."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

That night he was quite late coming into their hut. She heard him knock the sand off his boots outside their door and then push inside where the candles were still lit, waiting for him. She was sitting on the bed playing solitaire with the cards from his pack.

"You didn't need to wait up," he said, not unkindly.

"I wasn't waiting, really," she demurred, still unsure of how to start a conversation she wasn't sure he wanted to have.

He came to stand next to her, waited for her to turn over three cards, then pointed out a move she saw already but that she was also looking ahead of.

"You're later than I expected," she observed.

"The guy taking my place was delayed. No big deal."

"Are you hungry? I brought you some dinner back from Arnaq's."

He patted her on the shoulder, but his touch turned into a caress. "Thanks."

He stepped away from her, but she could still feel his hand on her, like it had burned through her clothing. She waited until he was seated at the table and eating before she ambushed him. "Are you doing okay?"

"Yeah," he said, sounding just fine. "Why?"

"You've been awfully quiet."

"In case you haven't noticed, Carter, I'm not really a talker."

"Quiet for you," she amended.

He shrugged. "I'm fine."

She piled the cards up in a messy stack that made her twitch to straighten them out. "Uki seems to be doing okay."

"He's a tough kid."

"But still, a kid."

"Yeah…" he led.

"A kid you mentioned before who was about Charlie's age…"

"Whatcha getting at, Carter?"

She sighed and gave into the urge to straighten the cards while she tried to collect her thoughts. "Is it maybe a little tough on you to be with Uki?"

"Even if it was, this isn't about me. It's about him. He needs somebody right now. And he seems to have picked me."

"He chose well," she said softly. "But what about you?"

He shoved some bread in his mouth and looked away from her. Once he swallowed he asked her, "What about me?"

She scrubbed her face with her hands. She didn't know what she was doing. And she sure as hell didn't know how to do it. "If you need to talk…"

"I don't."

"Okay. But if you need to."

"I know where you sleep," he offered, and she knew that was as close as they were getting to him saying he'd come to her if he needed her.

She didn't know how to be someone he trusted enough to let in without giving him much, much more time. And even then, there was no guarantee that she'd ever be the person he'd confide in. Sure, they had the time on this planet to bond them together in a way he wouldn't share with anyone else, but that was hardly an intimate bond.

She opted not to say any more.

When he was done eating he left the plate on the table and moved over to his pack to grab something clean to sleep in.

"I need to do laundry. I'm not sure how they do that here, but I can find out."

"I can do laundry, too."

"I know that, sir. But it'll give me something to do when I'm not traipsing around looking for crystals."

He nodded and then stripped his t-shirt over his head. Her eyes were drawn to his bare chest as they always were, she barely held her sigh of appreciation. Unselfconsciously he pushed his trousers down leaving him standing in front of her in his underwear. He grabbed a t-shirt and clean shorts and disappeared behind the screen. She heard him use the facilities and then, a few moments later, he reappeared dressed for bed.

She crawled underneath the covers while he blew out the candles, and then waited for him to climb in next to her. She felt a little bereft that she didn't know the right thing to say to get him to open up. He was a private man, she knew that much, but she found that she wanted to be his confidant.

In the safety of the darkness he cleared his throat before speaking. "Uki isn't Charlie, I know that. But it's tough to see a kid hurt, any kid. And it's especially tough when that kid reminds me of mine. It's not easy, but I'm okay. I have to be okay, for him."

Tears bit at her eyes. She reached over and laid a hand on his forearm. "If you're ever not?"

"We're all we've got out here. If I need you, I'll tell you."

It didn't assuage all her concerns, but it was enough.

 **Day 25**

Jack awoke to find Carter huddled up on her side of the bed facing away from him. He sighed. He knew that his reluctance to open up to her about his feelings surrounding Uki worried her. But it had just been a couple of days ago that she'd felt comfortable enough – secure enough – to cuddle right up to him. But now? Now she was all the way over there.

He gave himself a mental shake for caring about such a thing. It was one thing to be physically attracted to her, he could excuse that even as he knew it was wrong. It was quite another to want to be near her while she slept, or to want her to want to be near him. That was mere inches away from an emotional entanglement he didn't need.

It was tough, though, to be constantly with a person, as he'd been with Sam for most of the last three and a half weeks, and not form some kind of attachment. Especially when there was a physical attraction involved. And most especially when the woman in question was brilliant, and kind, and clearly wanted to be, if nothing else, friends.

And he did feel friendly towards her. He really did. He liked her as a person and as a subordinate officer, she was a great second. The trouble was keeping that feeling to something he also would have felt for Kawalsky. His feelings as of late had been far outside that safe camp.

He got out of bed and moved around their little place quietly in an attempt not to wake her. But when he stepped out from behind the privacy screen he found her lying on her black blinking up at the ceiling.

"Morning."

She hummed, sighed, stretched – in a way that caught his attention – and then said, "Good morning."

"Sleep well?"

She frowned a little but said, "Yes, sir."

He didn't believe her. "Really?"

She looked like she wanted to say something and he suddenly wondered if he'd had a night of dreaming that had disturbed her. She gave a noncommittal smile and slid out of the bed, effectively ignoring the question. "It's laundry day."

"Carter-"

"Make sure anything you want washed is in the pile," she indicated the stack of dirty clothes he'd started.

He frowned. She really wasn't going to open up to him. But, after the closed off way he'd handled her questions the night before, he really couldn't expect anything different.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Sam leaned back over the tub and scrub board Arnaq had loaned her to do their laundry. It was back breaking work, but the clothes were certainly coming cleaner than she'd been able to get them in just river water. That likely had something to do with the soap the woman had provided. It was different than the soap they'd been given for bathing and she was a little surprised to find that such a society would have multiple types of soap.

She thought back to the colonel's attempted conversation that morning. Truthfully, she'd come back around to it several times throughout the day, but she never got very far. Because the truth was, she'd awoken in the middle of the night to find herself pressed up against him again. She'd rolled away from him instantly – or, possibly, after a beat or two of enjoying the feel of his body next to hers – but her thoughts had stayed with her the rest of the night.

She had definite inappropriate feelings for her CO. And sharing a bed with him just made it worse. If it were merely physical attraction she thought, perhaps, she could handle that. But mix in feelings and she felt like she was really crossing a line.

So no, she hadn't slept well. She'd spent several hours lying awake thinking about how court martialed she was going to be when she got home.

She tried to rationalize that it was too soon to have feelings for him. Sure, they'd been on the same team for a while, and she hadn't had inappropriate feelings for him before this mission. But it had only been a few weeks since they were stranded. Was it really possible to catch feelings for someone in just a few weeks?

It hadn't happened that way with Jonas. With Jonas she'd gotten to know him over time. They dated for a while and then one day, a few months in, she realized she had real feelings for him. And a few months after that she realized she loved him. She was slow to fall for a person. Unless, apparently, that person was her completely off-limits CO.

She growled with frustration. Hadn't she always been a good officer? Didn't she always do exactly what was expected of her? What had she done to deserve this complication?

Sure, the colonel was handsome, but he also had baggage. Baggage she didn't even begin to know how to help him carry. Or if he even wanted or needed help to carry it. He was an intensely private person. She hardly knew him. But, apparently, what she did know was just enough to make her tingle with awareness when she thought of him or he came near.

She knew she needed to grab ahold of herself. Feeling the way she was feeling could only end badly. Even if he did, for some reason, reciprocate her feelings, they couldn't do anything about it. So, cuddling up to him in bed was nothing but problematic behavior. And she needed to nip that in the bud.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Jack walked around the perimeter of the village taking a few moments to himself. He'd spent the better part of the day with Uki and, as always, it put him in mind of his son. He tried not to get bogged down in the past, but the boys were remarkably similar in temperament so Uki was a constant reminder of what Jack no longer had.

He was glad they were trying to go home. Not that he didn't want to be there for the boy – losing a father was a tough thing – but he wasn't sure how long he could go on being the strength the child needed without having the time and space to lick his own wounds.

He supposed he could open up to the captain. She seemed to want to talk. But how much did he want to burden her with? How much of the darkness inside of him could she handle? Because Charlie was just the tip of the iceberg. And once he went down that road, the floodgates tended to open.

He found himself with a desire to share himself with her, and he hadn't felt that in a long time. It was a desire he hadn't felt since Sara, and back then, in the early days, he didn't have nearly as much baggage as he'd acquired over the years. And Carter was young. But she'd seen things, she'd done things, maybe she could relate to him in a way his wife just hadn't been able to. Maybe it made her a good person to open up to.

He had no way of knowing. He could take the leap, but that was a hard thing to do. Not that he wasn't used to doing hard things, but... this was different. Or, he could keep his demons tightly leashed and hope not to scare away a person he'd come to regard as pretty important.

It wasn't an easy decision.

 **Day 26**

Sam spent some time going through her pack and reorganizing things. She was going to be leaving the next day for another village to try to find some more intact crystals. Innugati had agreed to accompany her again, and she was both grateful for the company and a little put out by not having some time to herself to clear her head.

Sam had always been the kind of person who needed some time, not a lot, to be alone and rest and recharge. She hadn't been alone, not really, in over a month and the constant company was starting to wear thin. Not that she didn't like Arnaq and her family, and certainly not that she didn't like the colonel, but it would have been nice to have some time to herself.

The colonel, however, was pretty adamant that she not go on these little adventures alone. Sam wasn't sure how much help Innugati would be in a crisis. The girl was likely nearly an adult if not already technically one by Earth standards. But she had no real experience or training in anything that wasn't, basically, keeping home and family.

Maybe it would be good for Innugati to spend some time in her company, Sam considered. Maybe she could teach the girl things that her mother could not. And if she was able to save these people, perhaps that knowledge would serve Innugati well as she grew older. That, at least, was a bright side to the constant companionship.

It also made Sam feel useful. She wasn't doing much outside of being the one to search for crystals. The colonel had arranged it so she didn't have to take any watch shifts. So she spent her time with Arnaq, mostly, helping the woman in ways that her husband may have before his death. The woman was coping well, but she was sure that their lives on this planet prepared them more for death than, perhaps, a life on Earth did. It was likely a much more common occurrence here.

That didn't mean the woman wasn't still grieving; she was. And Sam was glad to be there to be both help and distraction. The colonel seemed to mostly handle Uki, though Arnaq and Uki's bond was undeniable. The boy loved his mother very much and he was well behaved. But his emotions were unpredictable and the colonel seemed to have the best luck with him in the times when he was most upset.

Sam and the colonel both agreed that their presence had likely hastened if not directly caused the death of Asuilaak. However, at the same time, Sam was glad she and the colonel were able to be there for the family. Because there was no knowing if Tulimak would have killed Asuilaak at some point anyway for being a force in the faction of the village who opposed Tulimak. She tried not to feel guilty and mostly succeeded for those reasons.

Sam closed her pack, finally done sorting out what she wanted to take and what she wanted to leave behind. The walk to the next village would take a day and a half. There was plenty of room left in her pack for crystals. She just hoped there would be enough useful ones to fill the space.


	9. Chapter 9

**Day 27**

Waking up next to her was a thing Jack was getting entirely too used to. Granted it had been just under a week that he'd been doing it, but in truth, he'd forgotten how much he enjoyed the simple intimacies that came with living with somebody – somebody he shared a bed with, anyway.

There was the way she'd had dinner waiting for him the other night, and the warmth of the hut when he'd walked in to find the candles burning and someone waiting for him to arrive, even if she'd said she hadn't been waiting up.

It wasn't that he wasn't entirely self-sufficient. He'd been single long enough to figure out how to feed himself properly, keep his house livable, and keep himself in clean laundry. But he really liked being a part of something domestic. He liked the feeling that someone cared.

He especially liked the warmth of another body in bed next to him. Especially when she wasn't curled up miles away from him. Her back was pressed against his upper arm and hip. She may have been turned away from him, but she couldn't have been any closer to him if she'd tried.

He wondered how he was going to get out of bed without jostling her, but then he realized she needed to get up and going anyway. She was headed out to scout for more crystals. It was going to be a four-day trip and he realized, quite suddenly, that he was going to miss her.

They didn't spend all their time together. He had responsibilities to the device and she seemed to do well helping Arnaq keep things together in her husband's absence. But the small moments they had together in the mornings and in the evenings, the way she sat across from him at dinner and always seemed to have a ready smile for him, sliding into bed with her at night – it all built a kind of relationship he was quickly coming to count on.

He shouldn't be counting on it.

He sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. Behind him, Carter made a small noise and rolled over and curled her body around his back. Awareness rolled through his body. He sighed and pushed himself out of a seated position, leaving her behind in their warm bed. That wasn't getting any easier as the days wore on.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

That night Sam and Innugati made camp near a stand of small trees. It was clear, though Innugati lived a much rougher life than most women her age that Sam was familiar with, that camping was just a little outside her comfort zone. She particularly didn't enjoy using a hole in the ground to use the bathroom. The quiet girl Sam was coming to know could become quite vocal on that particular subject.

The two settled in for dinner, a campfire glowing in front of them. Sam resigned herself to a silent supper and found herself longing for the colonel. He was a pretty great camping partner, all things considered. He always had been – even before they'd become stranded on this planet.

Sam had always enjoyed camping, since the time she was a small girl. Her father had thought it important that his kids spend time out in nature and so there had been many family camping trips – though, in hindsight, very few had included her mother. She relished parts of it, the campfires, the challenge of cooking, sleeping under the stars... But as she got older she discovered she missed things like showers and, Innugati would be impressed to learn, even toilets.

She found herself longing for the shower in her apartment. It had been far too long since she'd felt as clean as she did after a nice, hot shower. Sure, she was serviceably clean from the river baths and now from the tub baths she was taking in the village, but it just wasn't the same.

Unbidden, the thoughts of her shower suddenly included a tanned and hard-bodied colonel taking up more than his fair share of the spray. It might have been fantasy, but she felt her cheeks warm and flush as if she were going to get caught thinking of such a thing. The attraction to him was not new, and of course she'd been fighting it now for weeks.

Cohabitating with him was not helping. She'd never really lived with a man before. Sure, she'd spent many nights in Jonas' bed or he in hers, but she'd always had her own space, a place where she could collect her thoughts and just be herself. But having the colonel around so much was a wholly new experience. One she found she rather liked.

But she wasn't going to let herself get too used to it. They were going home, hopefully. They wouldn't be together so much anymore. She shouldn't let herself come to rely on his presence in any way. Especially not in the way her fantasy seemed to imply.

Sam turned her thoughts back to the mission at hand rather than the man who was taking up entirely too much of her brain power lately. She and Innugati needed food, then sleep. They still had a long walk ahead of them the next day. And she'd be damned if she was off her game because she couldn't kick a man – who was entirely off limits – out of her head for a night.

 **Day 28**

Jack was on his way back to his and Sam's hut after his shift with the device when Arnaq flagged him down. Her front door had come off its hinges and she had no idea how to fix it. Jack wasn't sure he knew how to fix it either without the tools he was accustomed to, but he figured he had a much better chance of working it out than she did, considering his handyman experience with the cabin.

"I'll take a look, see what I can do," he told her.

Half an hour into the project and he realized he was a bit out of his depth. But Uki was buzzing around, excited at the prospect of a domestic task he could help with and a strong sense of responsibility for such a young boy. He'd mentioned to Jack that things like this would be his responsibility now, and it made Jack's heart clench for the boy.

He went through the exercise of explaining how hinges worked to the boy and then, somehow, and with the help of some primitive looking tools Arnaq had pulled out of a bucket, Jack repaired the broken hinge that had caused the door to hang precariously in the doorway.

"You will stay for dinner, will you not?" Arnaq asked as he put the finishing touches on the door.

"Sure," Jack said, happy for the invitation.

"It was very kind of you to help. More kind of you to take the time to humor Uki."

"It wasn't exactly humoring him," Jack hedged. It was true that Uki was going to have to pick up more responsibilities than a boy his age generally would, especially in a society such as this. Jack didn't doubt that a neighbor man could have helped with the door situation, but self-sufficiency was never a bad thing.

Jack flashed back to the first time Charlie had watched him change the oil in his truck. He'd gone through each step as if the boy could or would commit them to memory. He knew he'd have to go through the same exercise a dozen times before the boy would be old enough to be able to help – or would even want to help – but it had still felt like the thing to be done; it was his job as a father to prepare his son for the jobs that he'd face in the future.

Asuilaak wasn't there to do that for Uki anymore. And Jack wouldn't be around for long, he hoped, but the least he could do is impart what little knowledge he could during that time.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Sam dug into the guts of the second device in this village. She'd found three intact crystals in the first device and was hoping for just as many in this one. Innugati was crouched down next to her, peering inside the device as well.

"That is a good one, no?"

Sam put her hand on the crystal Innugati indicated. "This one?"

"Yes."

Sam pulled it out and showed the crystal to the girl. "See this striation inside the crystal? That sort of milky stripe?"

"I do."

"That's a flaw. The crystal might work, but it likely would cause the whole thing to short out and might even destroy the other crystals."

"Are there any that will be useful?"

Sam poked her head back inside the device and started systematically removing and examining each crystal. She handed four of varying sizes over to the Innugati who wrapped them in cloth and then put them carefully in Sam's pack.

"Do you have what you need?"

"Well, I need enough to fix your devices as well as the Stargate. And I'm not entirely sure which ones I need and whether or not any or all of them are interchangeable. Right now, I'm just collecting resources. Plus, if we recover extras there's the possibility you all could keep them in case something happens to any of the crystals in the future and one or more need to be replaced."

"So, you will continue to collect these crystals?"

"I'm afraid so. There's another village within walking distance, right?"

"Yes. In a different direction, there is a village approximately five day's walk from ours."

"Then that'll be the next trip. I don't want to risk not having enough crystals for both repairs."

"Once you have repaired our devices, you and Jack will leave?"

"We need to go home."

Innugati nodded slowly. "Your Jack, he is a fighter, is he not?"

"In a way, yes," Sam said as she dusted her hands off and pushed to her feet.

"And you, you dress as he does. Does that make you a fighter as well?"

"I can, when I need to. I'm a scientist, though. That means I study things and the way they work."

Innugati nodded thoughtfully. "Would you teach me how to fight?"

The question took Sam aback. "Why do you want to learn how to fight?"

The girl looked down and away. Sam had a feeling she wasn't going to like the answer.

"I want to know how to defend myself." And it was clear, by the small voice Innugati had used to answer the question, that this was a pressing need rather than preemptive one.

Sam was right. She didn't like the answer at all.

 **Day 29**

Innugati's request had been on Sam's mind since the girl had made it. There were several reasons why a girl her age would want to defend herself and none of them gave Sam warm, fuzzy feelings. The teen had been quiet for the rest of the day after what had been the longest conversation Sam had ever had with her.

Sam spent the better part of the first day's walk back to the village wondering how to ask the question that was forefront on her mind. Finally, she decided that direct was the best plan of attack.

"Is someone hurting you?"

Innugati's shoulders tensed but she kept her head down and continued putting one foot in front of the other.

"Because if someone is hurting you, it's okay to tell someone about it."

She continued trudging along.

"Does your mother know what is happening?"

"No!"

The outburst startled Sam with its intensity. "What's going on?"

Innugati glanced sideways at Sam before turning her eyes back to the ground. "It is Tulimak. He uses some of the girls, not just me," she was quick to point out.

Bile rose in Sam's throat. She knew without a doubt exactly what Tulimak was using the girls for. She placed a hand on Innugati's shoulder drawing the girl up short. They stopped walking and faced one another.

"You haven't told anyone else?"

"Father would have killed him," she said. "And mother would try."

Sam couldn't understand exactly what was wrong with that scenario, but she wasn't going to say that to a young woman. "How long has this been going on?"

"I think for a long time. For me it has only been a year."

Sam squeezed the girl's shoulder and then pulled her into an embrace when tears landed on her cheeks. "I'll teach you how to stop it," Sam said quietly, but fiercely.

 **Day 30**

Carter had returned to the village with a pack full of crystals and a strong desire for a warm bath. Jack did the job of warming the water for her bath while she carefully catalogued what they had and what they still needed. He didn't need to remind her to factor in the needs of the DHD, but he did anyway.

The bathwater was ready at just about the same time she sat back on her heels and declared them well on their way to saving the villagers. He noticed she didn't say the same about getting them home. But he was trying not to dwell.

Jack gave her some privacy in the hut to bathe. Sure, the screen was there just for this sort of thing, but he thought she'd be able to relax better if he made himself scarce.

That was the only reason he could come up with as to why she wasn't standing behind the screen. Because when he walked in, after nearly an hour of playing catch with Uki, he saw her in the candlelight, back to the door, nude, shrugging into a robe. Still he caught sight of her lean back, and tight, high rear, the delicate curve of her waist and found himself going instantly hard at the sight of her, more arousing than the most erotic pictures in one of the magazines he didn't look at.

She turned at the sound of his footfalls, just her head, and she gasped, "Colonel!"

"Sorry, sorry! I thought you'd be done!"

She pulled the robe tight around her, but all that did was serve to highlight the shape of her body. "It's okay," she said, clearly not entirely convinced it was.

"Honest, I thought I'd left you long enough."

"I took my time."

He couldn't help but grin. "I can tell."

She huffed, "Sir." She belted the robe and then crossed quickly to her stack of clean clothes and pulled the nightgown off the top of the pile. She disappeared behind the screen and he saw the robe appear slung over the top. He tried not to fill in the gaps with what he'd just seen, but it was difficult. She had a great body, and in the candlelight her skin had been warm and tawny. His palms itched to glide over her soft skin.

He'd done a helluva job sublimating his sexual desires where she was concerned. They'd cropped up a few times, sure, but the truth was, the more time he spent with her, the more he got to know her, the more he wanted her. He'd always thought serving with a person taught him everything he needed to know about that person. But living with her had completely turned that theory on its head.

When she stepped out from behind the screen, he let his eyes rove over her but he quickly looked away, afraid of making her uncomfortable. He noticed she was blushing, easily enough, and he thought she must have really been embarrassed by his walking in on her. To his estimation, she had absolutely nothing to be embarrassed about. But damn if he'd bring it up.

As it was he was concerned about sliding into bed next to her. Not that he couldn't control himself – he was a grown man, for crying out loud. But he found himself wanting to test the waters. To see if the looks she sometimes gave him were interest on her part or merely speculative. Part of him knew he could hold himself off from doing something like that. He might have baser desires, but he was strong and he had a sense of right and wrong that couldn't be shaken. And making a move on one's subordinate officer, even if said subordinate officer was interested, was wrong.

Because, how could he truly know that she was saying yes because she wanted him and not because she thought she had to? He thought Carter was stronger than that, but there were things he didn't know about her, of course. He didn't know much about her history – save for her engagement to Jonas Hanson – and he wondered what that might tell him about her. He wondered how much of Sam Carter now was a result of that relationship. Was she stronger now? More adept at handling people? More able to make sound relationship decisions? Or, had that relationship left her weaker and more apt to make bad decisions.

He thought hard about the Carter he knew. She was strong, smart, capable... it didn't fit at all with the picture in his mind of a woman who would go for Hanson, so he hoped she'd built up calluses after that relationship that would serve to protect her and help her make better choices in the future.

But no matter which way he sliced it, Jack knew he'd be a bad decision for her. The way he felt about her, and with the chemistry he could feel between them, he was pretty sure the sex would be good. But good sex wasn't enough to risk your career over. And he'd be damned if he was going to ask her to give up SG-1 for something they had no way of knowing would ever be anything more than sex.

So, he felt like he was stuck. He wanted her, he couldn't have her. He'd never push her, couldn't think of a way to even ask her and so, he would do his best to be a friend to her and a good CO. And he'd just stuff down the sexual desire until it wasn't so bothersome. It wasn't going to be easy, but it was the right thing to do.


	10. Chapter 10

**Day 31**

Jack awoke with an armful of Carter. Her cheek was pressed against his bare chest and he was suddenly glad he'd opted to sleep shirtless the night before. He'd asked her if she minded. She'd said she didn't. And so, he'd slipped into bed in just his shorts.

They'd started out the night each on their own side of the bed. And he knew, from experience, that they were capable of staying on their own sides. But this wasn't the first time he'd found Carter close to him when he woke up. That didn't mean that this time wasn't thrilling.

He took some time to appreciate the feeling of her warm exhalations tickling his skin. The weight of her on his upper arm causing pins and needles in his fingertips. The way the skin of her upper arm felt under his palm.

As he lay there, appreciating her, she slid her hand across his belly, rolled her body just slightly until he was in her half embrace as well. He tried not to notice the way her breasts were pressed into his ribs, but he couldn't help but feel their soft fullness.

He also couldn't help the way his body reacted to her, so close, so warm, so... Carter.

She came awake slowly, by degrees. Her hand smoothed over his skin, her cheek rubbed against him, she turned her face into him, she took a long, deep breath, and she sighed. He wondered if she thought him asleep. If she was reveling in him the way he had in her. Her body stretched along his and she clearly made the decision not to get out of bed just yet because her thigh slid across his, the heavy weight of her leg a welcome pressure, the warmth of the center of her causing his body to tighten further.

She moved languidly, stroking him, settling against him and then moving away just so she could come back to him. Her sinuous movements put him in mind of more sensual things and he couldn't help the sound that escaped from his throat. She froze, her thigh high on his, her hand over his belly button, her lips practically pressed against one pec.

"Good morning," he rumbled, choosing to not blow off her closeness. He tightened his hold on her and rolled to face her. The movement hooked her thigh over his hip.

She buried her face in his chest and mumbled something he couldn't make out, but she didn't try to extricate herself from him, either.

He tangled his free hand in her hair and gently tugged her face away from his chest. "What was that?"

Her eyes were screwed tightly shut. "I said, good morning, sir."

He couldn't help but quirk an eyebrow at her use of his honorific. A smile bloomed across his face. She started to slide her thigh away from him, and he quickly disentangled himself from her hair, then dropped his hand to her thigh. He didn't hold her in place, but he let his hand drag along her smooth skin and tried not to think about her nightdress bunched up around her hips.

They'd cleared several hurdles all in one morning, it seemed. And neither one of them seemed disinclined to let it happen. It was good to know that the things he was feeling for her might actually be reciprocated.

He slid his hand up her body, over her hip, along her ribs... and tried very hard to resist the urge to roll her underneath him. She licked her lips. Then she closed the distance between them, pressing her face into him once more. She felt hotter than she had before, like she was blushing, only he hadn't noticed because he'd been looking at her mouth.

He tightened his arms around her until she was in a proper embrace. Deciding to give them both a reprieve, he pressed a quick kiss to the top of her head, then released her and rolled out of bed.

Hadn't he just the night before vowed to _not_ feel the way he was feeling? But, that had been before knowing she was feeling at least some of the same.

He bent down and snagged a uniform off the top of the clean clothes pile and then disappeared behind the screen use the chamber pot and then dress, hopefully before she noticed, if she hadn't already, the effect she'd had on him.

He was going to think about kissing her all day.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Her whole body was buzzing even hours after she'd awoken in his arms. He'd smelled so good, and felt so warm, and her body had hummed just being so close to him, that she'd thrown caution to the wind and enjoyed him. And then she'd discovered he was awake. She felt her face flush with embarrassment even now.

But he hadn't admonished her, he'd touched her. His big, warm hands had been on her body. He'd pressed his lips to the crown of her head before he beat a hasty retreat from their bed. She didn't think it was embarrassment that caused him to flee, or discomfort. She thought, perhaps, that it had been propriety that caused him to leave her in the cocoon of blankets alone.

What had happened between them that morning was not supposed to happen. He knew that just as well as she did. Granted, it had been her fault – all of it. But she wasn't going to offer to let him bring her up on charges. If he wanted to do that, he'd have to do it without her blessing. But she was ninety-five percent positive that he was more likely to incite a repeat performance than he was to convene a disciplinary board.

The truth was, she'd been fighting her attraction to him for a long time. And this mission had done little to disabuse her of the notion that she wanted him. Plus, it was almost that time of the month again, and as she always did, she felt a little edgier than usual.

She went back to scrubbing dirt out of the knees of his pants – either a remnant of some play time with Uki or some work for Arnaq. But ultimately the repetitive nature of the chore of laundry allowed her mind plenty of room to travel. She relived every moment they'd shared together in bed that morning, and daydreamed about him walking in on her after her bath the previous night, and how things might have gone if he wasn't such a gentleman or if she was more wanton.

She was so lost in thought that she didn't hear Arnaq approach.

"Good things on your mind?" Arnaq asked her. The question was light, but Arnaq had a heaviness about her, steel in her eyes, and a strong set around her mouth.

"Um, yeah," Sam stammered. "Why?"

"You have a smile on your face like I have never seen."

Sam flushed with embarrassment. "Memories, that's all."

"I am glad you have memories that can put that look on your face." Arnaq sounded a little wistful and Sam figured she was recalling her own good memories of her husband.

Sam smiled wanly. "Something I can do for you?"

Arnaq shook her head, turned over the bucket she was carrying, and sat down. "Innugati tells me that you will be leaving again tomorrow, to try to find more crystals."

"That's the plan."

"This village, it is much further than the others, and you must pass through mountains."

"Yes."

"The great beasts that the men hunt are many in that area. Please, be careful," the woman pleaded. "To lose my daughter so soon after-"

Sam knew the request for what it was. Arnaq was worried for her only daughter. And so soon after losing Asuilaak, she couldn't bear to lose another member of her family. "Of course."

Arnaq nodded and then stood, picking up her bucket. "Tell me, Sam, is it Jack that puts that look on your face?"

Sam felt herself flush again.

Arnaq laughed musically. "I thought so," she said before leaving Sam to her laundry.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Jack pulled his hat off and wiped his sweaty brow. He'd passed the time on his watch thinking about all the things he could have done to Carter between the bath last night and bed this morning. It had been years since he'd been so keyed up for so long.

When his relief had shown up, he'd been grateful. He needed to get his mind onto something else, and he had plans to see Uki once his watch was over. Jack made his way to the center of the village where Uki could usually be found playing with the other children.

Jack asked around but none of the other kids could tell him where Uki was. A quick stop by Arnaq's hut and he learned that the boy had been gone for hours. He wasn't sure what caused him to look over to the hook on the wall where Uki's bow had hung next to his father's. When he saw both hooks were empty – Asuilaak's as a matter of course now – his blood ran cold. The boy knew he wasn't to practice with his bow and arrow alone.

And just that morning, before Jack's shift with the device, Uki had made a short – and what Jack had thought harmless – observation about his family's meat stores. Suddenly, Jack knew just where Uki was and what he was up to. But... where to find the kid?

Arnaq panicked the moment Jack voiced his concern and told Jack in which direction the hunters generally went. She untied her apron and flung the thing aside but Jack told her to stay, he'd bring Uki home. Besides, he was going to have to lump it to catch up with the boy and Arnaq would only make the process slower.

He didn't even take the time to tell Sam where he was going. He set out after Uki at a light jog and just hoped he'd make it to the boy before he managed to get himself hurt.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Tulimak stewed as he sat at the table in the center of the village. Word had it that the female newcomer had been collecting crystals from the neighboring villages in an attempt to fix the devices that would call the Goa'uld. He could not allow that to happen.

The male newcomer had organized the villagers who opposed Tulimak until there was always someone with the devices, so he could not further damage them. He had to come up with some other plan.

If what he had heard was true, then the female would be venturing out once more. He would have to attempt to stop her then. Innugati had been accompanying her but the girl would not be an issue, Tulimak was certain.

He should have found a way to kill Asuilaak's entire family, the meddlesome bunch. He sneered. Without Arnaq having drawn the newcomers into her fold, none of this would be happening. It was easy enough to control the villagers, but these outsiders apparently had no concern for how things were to be done in the village.

Tulimak knew that he was opposed by many. But he had worked closely with the Goa'uld in his youth so he knew what the Gods were capable of. Calling them back would mean certain enslavement for them all and death for many.

Despite what was the common belief, it was not that he was unconcerned about the way the villagers were falling sick. He even had a village elder – a healer – working with some of the sick in an attempt to make them well. He did not believe that the devices were the answer. They were nothing but a beacon that would doom them all.

Tulimak did not consider himself a bad man. He did what he had to do to protect the people of his village and nothing more. If it meant that others had to die to that end, then so be it. That female was trouble, he knew it deep down in the pit of his stomach. She could not be allowed to make it to her next destination.

He would do whatever was necessary to stop her.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Sam was sitting with Arnaq at her table when Jack ushered Uki into the hut, his large hand on the boy's shoulder. Uki looked like he'd been dressed down by an angry colonel and like he was jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Arnaq's initial reaction was to wrap the boy into a hug, pressing him into her ample body until he sighed and started to push out of her embrace. Her next reaction was to grasp him by the shoulders and hold him out at arm's length and give him the sharp side of her tongue.

Sam surveyed the colonel as Arnaq scolded Uki. He looked tired though he was holding himself rigid in that way he had when he was feeling strong emotion. She stood and crossed to him, unheeded by Arnaq who was still lashing Uki with her words. Sam stepped up to the colonel and put her hand on his forearm. "Come on," she said quietly, "let's go home."

It was late, past dark, and he'd surely be hungry. Arnaq had set aside a dinner plate for him. Sam picked it up and gestured to the door.

"Jack," Arnaq broke away from her scolding, "I cannot thank you enough for bringing Uki home safely."

"I don't think he'll be running off again, any time soon."

"I do not believe so, either," she replied with a small smile that vanished as soon as she turned her eyes back on her boy.

"We'll say good night now," Sam said. "Thank you for dinner. I'll bring your plate back tomorrow."

"Thank you, Sam."

Sam steered the colonel out of the hut with her hand on his elbow. He didn't object. She let her hand fall away when they were on the path to their own hut, the full moon lighting their way. He was quiet while they walked and she was disinclined to push. She'd wait until they were home, as it were, and he had sat and eaten something, before she would ask him what, exactly, had transpired out there that left him so quiet and full up on emotion.

In the hut he sat down heavily in one of their chairs. He propped his elbows on the table and rested his head in his hands. She slid the plate in front of him hoping that the rich smell of the roasted meat would encourage him to eat. It did. Slowly, he began picking at the food in front of him until he was eating normally.

It was then that Sam chose to speak. "It's good that you found Uki before something bad happened to him."

The colonel just grunted his assent.

She didn't take offense. "Arnaq was very worried."

"So was I."

She took a chance to touch him, not something the usually did, just touching each other willy-nilly. _Unless, of course, they were in bed_ , she thought. She laid her hand over his forearm, curling her fingers around the sinewy muscle. He was so warm beneath her hand. "Sir, Uki is fine. You did good."

"He never should have gone off like that," he said, a slight edge of desperation in his voice.

"You couldn't have known he'd do that."

"I should have known! He was too interested in hunting. I should have known and kept him safe."

Sam wondered if they were talking about Uki or about Charlie. She ran her hand down his arm until his wrist was within her grasp. "He's safe, sir."

"What if there's a next time? What if it's when I'm not here?"

"I'm pretty sure between you and Arnaq, he's been scared straight."

The colonel sighed heavily. "I'm supposed to do better."

"You did great," she whispered.

He looked over at her, his eyes were haunted. She knew then that this was definitely about Charlie. She didn't know what to say to assuage his guilt over the loss of his son. Wasn't sure there was anything she _could_ say.

"I'm going to get ready for bed," she said, rather than address his pain.

He nodded and pushed his dinner plate away, relaxing back into the chair. He let his head fall back and his eyes closed. She wished she knew what he was thinking, what self-recriminations were running through his head.

She got up and gathered her night dress and stepped behind the screen. It didn't take her long to change. She put her dirty clothes in the pile and then went back to him. She put a hand on his shoulder. "Come on, you too."

He nodded wearily and stood up. He followed her over to the sleeping area and watched as she climbed into the bed. She made herself comfortable and tried not to watch the way he started undressing. First his shirt over his head, next his boots, then his pants pushed down over strong thighs.

He slid into the bed next to her, dressed only in his shorts. He didn't ask about his shirt as he had the night before, and she was hoping it was comfort not distraction that repeated the performance.

She thought about it, she really did, about whether or not to scooch over to her side of the bed entirely and leave the arm length between them or stop with the pretense. If the morning was anything to go by, he certainly didn't have a problem with her in his personal space. And she rather liked it too.

Throwing caution to the wind, she scooted up next to him. He looked over at her, considered her a moment, and then lifted his arm, allowing her to sidle right up against him. She wrapped her arm around him and squeezed, lending him what support she could under the circumstances.

"Carter-"

"Sir," she interrupted, not sure what he was going to say, but sure she didn't want to hear it.

He chuckled, she could feel it where their chests were pressed together. "Don't you think the 'sir' is a little out of place now?"

"No." Because they were going home. This... closeness... was an aberration.

He slid a hand from her shoulder to her wrist. She shuddered against him. He took a breath like he was going to say something, but they both knew he'd made his point. He rolled in her embrace, like he had that morning, and they were chest to chest, her head just below his in a way that he could rest his chin on the crown of her head if he wanted to.

He sank his hand into her hair, again, like he had that morning, and pulled her back gently until he could look her in the eye. His eyes then dropped to her mouth. Awareness zinged through her body making all her nerves tingle. She licked her lips, preparing for him to lean down and kiss her. His eyes slipped closed and he looked like he was fighting very hard for control.

She slid her arm around his waist and pressed her hand flat against the plane of his back, encouraging him to finish what he'd started. But he didn't. He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her forehead, one that left her body aching for him so much that she arched against him, pressing her breasts into his chest, trying to elicit more from him.

He released her head and his hand traveled down to the small of her back. He pulled her tight against him until she felt the evidence of how he'd grown hard pressed undeniably against her belly. She gasped, not from surprise but from desire. The bolt was quick and sure and ran from her breasts to her center.

"And now?"

It took her lust-addled brain a moment to realize he was asking if the 'sir' was still appropriate. "We can't... we're going home." She realized a split second later that that was her only objection.

His exhale ruffled her hair.

"Sam," he said gruffly, seemed poised to continue, but remained silent past her name.

She shook her head and buried her face in his chest, but she didn't pull her soft body away from his hard one. "I want you," she reassured him, unsure if that was the best course of action. "But we're going home."

He nodded, she felt the way his chin rubbed through her hair. "You're right."

She pressed herself as tightly against him as possible, willing to take what she could, all the way past the point of propriety. She reveled in the way he felt, his erection between them.

"You've got to stop that," he pleaded.

She backed away from him just enough. He turned back over onto his back and pulled her tight into his side, clearly not willing to set her aside completely.

"Maybe some time apart will do us good," she said.

He just harrumphed and settled his hand into the curve of her waist.

Yeah, she wasn't sure either.


End file.
